Sometimes it's hard to tell Matthias Hermann and his cock apart. He's so cock-like, pert and amusing. And his cock acts just like a silly guy in a hotel room. The two of them seem to have a wonderful time together. It's rare to see such shamelessness. What an instructive performance! In America, the trick of imagining your colleagues naked is a strategy for board room dominance. We find nudity to be so absurd that it virtually nullifies existence. Without clothes we are nothing. Naked with his cock, Matthias Hermann comes alive. His cock is like a little battery that keeps his arms flapping and legs kicking. As long as that tube is stiff, all's well in hotel room 617.

I recently saw a performance off-Broadway titled "Puppetry of the Penis." It was a stand-up comedy revue consisting of two Australian fellows who manipulated their cocks and balls into forms resembling everything from a hamburger to a flying squirrel. Oddly, they never acknowledged that any of the men in the audience might find their antics-like twirling their members in the manner of helicopter blades-to be anything more than simply grotesque. The other strange thing about their show was the total absence of a mise-en-scene. A bare stage and two spot-lit cocks. Mathias Hermann, in contrast, is nothing if not alluring and his work is frankly addressed to the gaze of fellow cock-holders. This is what gives his photographs the flavor of an inside joke. As for the mise-en-scene, Hermann and his cock are true decorators and fashion whores. It is the rare-if beguiling-image which features only his stout, undressed prong. So, we have the ultimate self-exposure combined with a theatrical flair for dissimulation. Hermann's photos present cock as character.

Then there's Hermann's ass. Another willing playmate. Truly like the flip-side of a coin, Hermann's double-cheeked tuchas has the same semiotic value as his stiff dick. A sex part on parade. Still, perhaps because it less resembles the human figure, his ass is relegated to a supporting role, as the corps de ballet is to the prima ballerina. Still, its performances are not incidental. Can we even say that Hermann himself is Janus-headed? That his ass and his face are two expressions of the same mind? When he turns around, after all, we do not feel as if we are being ignored. Hermann's face throughout bears the bemused yet slightly jaded look of a babysitter blandly suffering the tortures of his ill-mannered young charges. His own body a doll, a plaything, dressed and posed. Not without a certain pleasure and even thrill, but also with the knowledge that these are moments stolen from the norm. Fraught with reality but not to be brought up when the parents come home.