Revisiting territory covered in his 2002 monograph,
Gymnasium, Luke Smalley goes back to his native Pennsylvania with
Exercise at Home (Twin Palms, $50) to capture images of barely legal boys posed in bygone-era sporting tableaux, which remind us why we were able to sit through
Hoosiers so many times growing up.
Though its unclear how Smalley chose the books titlenone of the images appear to be taken in a home; they look more like they were snapped at a camp or in a gymhis subject selection and staging are anything but arbitrary. Each model (found locally by Smalley) is physically evocative of another time and adequately fills out his period short-shorts, and the lighting falls somewhere between Edward Hopper and Steven Meisels infamous basement pornthemed Calvin Klein ads. We never would have skipped sports to sneak smokes if the guys had looked this good.
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