Stock Boyz
Stock Boyz is a series of male pin-ups of anonymous figures in different stages of undress. In the early 2000s, they appeared on several obscure, mostly Eastern European and now defunct, fetish websites. Some appear to be "rough trade" and/or "gay for pay," while others come off as hustlers and exhibitionists by chance not choice.
I started this series shortly before the devastating market crash of September 2008, using the stock charts from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times as an abstract background. Initially I thought of this series as a commentary on commodification of youth in our consumerist society. However, after the market crash, it gained the whole new, more sinister meaning.
As the economy kept getting worse, the numbers and graphics also kept on changing dramatically. I continued collecting the charts and making new pin-ups, giving them titles made of current headlines: Small Capitalization, Most Active, Slow Growth, Total Volume, Behind and Ahead, Gainers and Losers, New Highs and Lows, etc...
While the rigid headlines, stripped of their actual meaning, sound frivolous and suggestive, the boys’ exposed fragile bodies, taken out of sexual context, slowly dissolve in an ocean of cruel digits. Bit by bit, they are swallowed by capitalist greed and over-indulgence.