Marc Horowitz

After soaring high and flaming out in Hollywood, Abe, a celebrated bodybuilder, returns home across the 405 to Venice Beach, where it all started. But Abe's beloved boardwalk feels different. There’s a nasty bite to the sea breeze, a slew of unexplained overdoses putting the gym rats on edge, strange supernatural sightings on the pier hinting at something primordial lurking beneath the surface of sun-dappled Venice. And Jay—his old lifting partner, his former roommate, the one person he truly abandoned in his pursuit of fame—has disappeared, leaving Alice, his ex, alone to take care of their infant son.

Artist Ben Lunato is being prosecuted under an insane new Dutch law which holds that creating a sexual image amounts to raping someone. He may be in prison for a year. Europe has entered a rancorous mood, willing to throw its freedoms into the bargain, to sink back into the clay. We seized this moment to embark with Ben Lunato on a journey through the world of whores who, in our strange world, appear to have become the bearers of truth—arriving in Los Angeles, where we meet the art dealer Stefan Simchowitz, and, of course, whores. Endlessly many whores. These figures merge into an affirmative horizon, beyond woke ideology, toward a new art: WHORE DIALECTICS.