Modern art video pieces tend to get a bad rap, with many seeing them as the pinnacle on pointless, self-indulgent modern art. While that’s a very myopic view of it, I’m sure a lot more gay men would be interested in them if they were all like Brooklyn artist Idan Bitton’s ‘First Kiss’, which he’s now released on Youtube.
It’s simply 84-minutes of Bitton kissing Alfredo Ferran (and I reckon they probably both at chapped lips by the end of that).
However Bitton isn’t impressed that his video was flagged and age-restricted on Youtube, despite the thousands of videos of straight kisses on the site that anyone can watch (we understand his frustration, as we recently discovered one web filtering firm initially classed this site as pornography and still won’t stop classing it as ‘Controversial: Adult Material’).
Bitton told Towleroad, ‘As the video started becoming popular, and surprisingly inspiring to viewers, it got flagged and age restricted on YouTube while other “straight” kissing videos are not. Some of them even have titles such as “How to Kiss Dirty” and such… I wanted to bring this to your attention in the hopes of raising the awareness to this issue…’
As for the piece itself, he says, ‘While the camera is still, the kiss is in motion provoking the viewer to stay and watch. Idan and Alfredo do not interact with the viewer, but offer a peek into their intimate moments of commitment. This long lasting, present and unapologetic kiss defines our current gay rights momentum. We are here, we love each other, and this is what it looks like.’
Take a look above.
Ive never seen video art before but I think if you can paint and produce a feeling of love you can certainly watch this and see love, I didnt see it in gay terms I just saw it as love and it was beautiful.