The cover image of this issue of Artkrush is a detail of Cheer, a 2006 photograph by Adam Ames and Andrew Bordwin, also known as the collaborative duo Type A. Ames and Bordwin use video, photography, and sculpture to document everyday demonstrations of competitive machismo, most often enacted by the artists themselves. Cheer comes from their residency at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts, where the artists convinced the cheer squads of the adjacent Philips Academy to choreograph sequences specifically for Type A.

Both trained in photography, the artists have worked together since 1998. Ames was born in 1969 and received a master's in photography and related media from the School of Visual Arts. Born in 1964, Bordwin earned his bachelor's in photography from NYU and runs his own commercial practice, serving clients such as Gucci, GQ, and Martha Stewart. He is represented by New York's Julie Saul Gallery.

Based in New York, the duo has exhibited its work with the city's Sara Meltzer Gallery and in solo shows in Los Angeles and Malmö, Sweden. Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum featured the team last winter, and in the summer of 2006, Ames and Bordwin won P.S.1's Iron Artist Competition — a real-time arts duel based on the Iron Chef television show.

Exploring male aggression both genuine and feigned, the duo's photos and videos are surprisingly elegant. The pair's 2004 series Push follows each artist as he tumbles from the other's shove. From unseen violence comes something beautiful — Bordwin and Ames recover like dancers, their bodies and expressions desperate to be noble. Whether comparing body parts in the locker room or the firmness of handshakes outside the office, Ames and Bordwin capture the absurdity of male rivalry and the social challenges of same-sex intimacy. (LM)