'Gaysi': Sakshi Juneja's Queer Blog Thrives In India's Illegal Queer Scene

Mario Testino Captures Marjan Jonkman & Nora Attal In 'Role Play' For Vogue India May 2017

Posting Testino's 'Role Play' for Vogue India, AOC discovered 'Inside Gaysi: the blog transforming India's queer scene', appearing Monday in The Guardian'. Charukesi Ramadurai shares writes that the zine's content includes pieces of fiction, photo-essays, personal narratives, illustrations and how-to guides on the theme of sexual desire, from A Quick Guide to Scissoring to evocative verse on Love in the Age of Surveillance.

Gaysi – a portmanteau of the words gay and desi (desi is Hindi slang for south Asian) – first appeared as a blog almost 10 years ago. It has since developed a zine that retails at major bookshops across the country, hosts open mic events, book clubs and, most recently, India’s first drag king show. “We needed stories we could all relate to, and we needed an honest documentation of the livedGaysi – a portmanteau of the words gay and desi (desi is Hindi slang for south Asian) – first appeared as a blog almost 10 years ago. It has since developed a zine that retails at major bookshops across the country, hosts open mic events, book clubs and, most recently, India’s first drag king show. “We needed stories we could all relate to, and we needed an honest documentation of the lived realities of desi queer folks," founder Sakshi Juneja explains about her 10-year journey writing about gender and equality.

Mario Testino Sells 400 Works To Benefit Peru's Museo Mate & Promote Peruvian Artists

Jackie Hoffmann, Iliana Lolas, Karen Miter, Naomi Campbell and Mario Testino at the MATE Museum

Master photographer Mario Testino, known for his glam shots of supermodels and fashion editorials for the world's leading magazines. Over the years, Testino has become a buyer of fine art, with 500 works from his collection going to auction this fall. The sale, slated for September 13-14 in London, will benefit the Museo Mate (Museo Mario Testino) in Lima, Peru, a nonprofit that aims to bring Peruvian artists to world attention. The sale is expected to raise in excess of $10 million.

Testino is a fan of beauty, talking about his first photography purchase in the 1980s, a picture of actor Vivien Leigh by the surrealist photographer Angus McBean. 

"Beauty today is considered a bit banal and a bit empty and a bit superficial. In the art world you probably can't mention that word, because it's not interesting or not deep enough. But I'm just always amazed by it," the BBC quotes the famous photographer. 

Prior to the Sotheby's sale, Testino will take over Sotheby's London galleries to curate an exhibition featuring a "series of talks by friends and collaborators from the worlds of fashion and photography. "

The collection represents artists of 45 nationalities, including Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman. The collection is particularly rich in Latin American art, with works by the Argentine artists Pablo Bronstein and Amalia Pica, the Colombian Oscar Murillo and, not surprisingly, Peruvian artists such as William Cordova.

Testino has accumulated more than 1000 works without ever selling a piece. The decision to sell almost half the collection has been 'hard'. 

"It's sad to part," he says. "I've never sold anything. I've been too attached to my collection."

But he says: "I have a mission."

"I'm selling because I have a unique opportunity to change something in the country I come from," he says.

Testino addes that he can't maintain the museum "with the money I have. I can't carry on worrying every month if I have the money or not".

He says "getting sponsors today is quite difficult" so he wants to create an endowment to ensure the centre has financial security in the future.

ArtNet Interviews New York Philanthropist Agnes Gund, Founder of Studio in a School

artnet News' Andrew Goldstein introduces us to Agnes Gund, New York's 'renowned philanthropist' who brings art and money together for progressive causes. As a beloved figure in New York, Gund attained a special cachet joining Patti Smith, Serena Williams, Tavi Gevinson and more for the 2016 Pirelli calendar, lensed by Annie Leibovitz. . 

The daughter of an Ohio banking magnate, Gund has expressed guilt that she was given so much more in birth than others. Her fervor for philanthropy saw her on the boards of some 20 charitable and cultural organization as of a few years ago.

Gund is especially proud of her project Studio in a School, the nonprofit program founded in 1977 to bring art lessons, taught by real working artists, to New York City’s public schools. Forty years later, Studio in a School has reached nearly one million children in New York alone, with 90 percent of its activities benefiting students from lower-income families.

Agnes Gund and Sadie Rain Hope-Gund by Annie Leibovitz for Pirelli Calendar 2016.