TOO MANY KISSES (a french blog about kisses)

KISSTERVIEW: SARA | ITALIAN | FIRST KISS AT AGE15

My first kiss was… funny.
When we were young my sister and I were always wondering how it was to kiss, so we organised rehearsals with a teddy bear. We both trained kissing the teddy bear and made comments like it was a scientific research. So then, when I kissed a boy for the first time, I couldn’t help but think about the teddybear and it made me smile.

It was at a party during our summer vacation, with a 21 year old boy that I had already met quite a few times. It was nice and fun, I really liked it. It was very emotional, I had strong feelings, as I still have now when I kiss someone. And I would like it to stay that way forever.

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LAURA PANNACK | YOUNG LOVE | 2009

Laura Pannack is a young British portait photographer. This particular series entitled “Young Love” shows teenagers kissing and hugging.

“I think we often have quite a pessimistic notion of young relationships and forget that sometimes the simplicity of young love can form very strong relationships. Our ‘first love’ is a relationship we never forget and can act as a template for future behaviour and expectations in the future. A relationship free of worry, responsibility, experience and future plans can ultimately lead to one of fun and intimacy.”

www.laurapannack.com

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KISSTERVIEW: JULIE | KOREAN | FIRST KISS AT 16

It was with my first boyfriend and the feeling was horrible! We were at his parent’s house. I was expecting romance, but my boyfriend didn’t know how to kiss, he was just rolling his tongue. I was like: “what is this?”
But I liked him a lot, his inside, so I stayed with him because kiss didn’t really matter. We were together for two years. My parents knew about him, but of course they never knew about the kissing. In Korea it used to be uncommon to kiss. Maybe in a park, in the dark, but never in public. It becomes more common now.
I still personally think Koreans and Asians in general are horrible kissers!

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UNTITLED (KISS) | BERLIN | EVA BESNYÖ | 1931

Eva Besnyö (1910-2003) was born in Budapest, where she lived until she was 20. She then fled the growing anti-Semite climate to get settled in Berlin, where she began the most wonderful and creative period of her life. She got work as a press photographer and spent her days roaming the city with her camera, searching for new subjects. The picture above was taken in 1931 (she was then 21) by Lake Wannsee, in Berlin.

In 1933 she had to flee, again, away from fascism and took shelter in Amsterdam, where she freely and successfully kept working until may 1940, when the Nederlands got invaded by the Nazi troops. As a Jew, she obviously had to go into hiding underground. After the war, she became more and more involved into the feminist cause, personnally and in her work.

Check retrospective exhibition in Paris, Jeu de Paume Museum, until september 23, 2012.

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RITA MORENO AND MARLON BRANDO | 1968

This still photograph of Marlon Brando passionately kissing naked Rita Moreno was taken during a love scene in The Night of the Following Day, in which they first met and became lovers for 8 years. Brando kept a print of this black-and-white picture hanging in his study until he died. It then got sold at an auction for $27000.

©Photo: AP

The Night of the Following Day Trailer :

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ORLAN | THE ARTIST’S KISS | 1977

Orlan is a French Feminist artist whose work of art “Le Baiser de l’Artiste” (The Artist’s Kiss), had a big impact on the Art scene in the 1970′s.

The performance occured near the Grand Palais during the FIAC fair in Paris, where she basically sold her own kisses for 5 French Francs. Here’s the motto she shouted to request the public’s attention: «Approchez approchez, venez sur mon piédestal, celui des mythes : la mère, la pute, l’artiste.» — «Come here, come on my pedestal, the pedestal of the myths: the mother, the whore, the artist.»

Since then she kept involving her body in her art, most of the time in provocative ways.

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SUMMER OF LOVE | ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI COVER BY SAIMAN CHOW | 2011

This artwork entitled “Summer of Love” is by Brooklyn based illustrator Saiman Chow, who also did the cover for Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti’s Round and Round single. And, the music is great!

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KISS | TEENAGE KISSERS | ED TEMPLETON | 1996

Ed Templeton is a skateboarder, painter, graphic designer and photographer. He got some success with a first photography series entitled “Teenage Smokers”, and kept the same process for “Teenage Kissers”, a serie about teenagers learning how to kiss, with touching and/or awkward attitudes.

http://www.toymachine.com

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PLEASURES AND TERRORS OF KISSING | JAMES FRIEDMAN | 1994/1998

From “Pleasures and Terrors of Kissing”, 1994.

James Friedman is a fine art, portrait, architectural, commercial and personal documentary photographer. He is American, based in Columbus, Ohio, and internationally renowned. About this project : “I do not remember any kissing between family members as I was growing up. It wasn’t until my mother was hospitalized for eight months, unable to speak, that we began to kiss good-bye before I would depart for the day after visiting her. These newly discovered displays of affection were imbued with genuine caring and profound sadness as we both know she had only a short time to live. Our relationship in my mother’s final months inspired my photographic project, Pleasures and Terrors of Kissing.”

www.jamesfriedmanphotographer.com

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KISS | LINA SCHEYNIUS | 2008

From Swedish photographer Lina Scheynius’s Diary. This is her and her former boyfriend on the picture. www.linascheynius.com

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DEBBIE HARRY AND CHRIS STEIN | 1976

Debbie Harry and Chris Stein are the founders of punk rock band Blondie. They met in a New York bar in 1973. At that time she was a waiter, a dancer and a singer, he an art student. They became lovers and bandmates.

Debbie and Chris were very much in love. In the mid 80′s when Stein became ill with a terrible skin disease, Debbie stopped working completely to nurse him back to health. Then they broke up in 1989, but they have continued to work together.

The photographer who shot this amazing picture is Roberta Baylay, in January 1976. She used to work as a door person at CBGB’s, and subsequently befriended leading musicians in the punk scene. She started to take pictures almost by chance: “When I came to CBGB all these bands wanted their pictures taken and it turned out I was pretty good. It was going to work for Punk magazine that really opened things up a lot because they really had an interesting take on things.“
Among the artists she has photographed are Iggy Pop, Richard Hell, Elvis Costello, The Sex Pistols, Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers, The Ramones, Nick Lowe, The Damned, The Clash and Joe Strummer, The Dead Boys, The New York Dolls, and of course Blondie and Debbie Harry. Read an interview of Roberta here.

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PAUL NEWMAN AND JOANNE WOODWARD | A NEW KIND OF LOVE | 1963

From the movie “A New Kind of Love” by Melville Shavelson in which Paul Newman kisses his real life wife Joanne Woodward.

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WOODY ALLEN AND ROMY SCHNEIDER | PARIS | 1964

From the movie “What’s Up Pussycat”.

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MARYLIN MONROE & JOE DIMAGGIO | WEDDING KISS | 1954

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THE VANCOUVER KISS | 2011

This picture was shot during the Vancouver Riots in June, 2011, and rapidly spreaded all over the internet, without anybody knowing the identity of these two young people kissing in the midle of chaos. The day after, their names were revealed, as well as the purpose of their strange acting. He is a 29-year-old Australian named Scott Jones, and the woman is his canadian girlfriend Alexandra Thomas. She actually just had been injured by the riot police, she was crying and her boyfriend was trying to comfort her. This is love.

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