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Penczak, Christopher. “Before the Pen and the Plow.” In Gay Witchcraft: Empowering the Tribe , 10-12. Weiser Books, 2003. We started filming gay bars with a GoPro camera in 2014, with no particular outcome in mind. Before we knew it Candy Bar, the George and Dragon, and Joiners Arms—all busy, successful, and culturally important gay bars in London—had shut their doors followed by a spate of other closures nationally. Between 2006 and 2017, 58 percent of LGBTQ venues closed down; it was an epidemic. Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) was known for his realistic depictions humans and his sometimes even “gritty” depictions of life and the body as seen through the eye.
The works on adobe evolved quite slowly from color field studies based on the adobe vernacular of my parents’ hometown in Durango, Mexico, to something suggestive of portraiture, and finally, they’ve arrived at a place that feels very exciting to me. Can you tell us a bit about the work you created with Beatriz Cortez for Commonwealth & Council at Frieze Los Angeles? Presumed or weaponised homoeroticism for comedic effect masks a deeper and more nuanced experience of gay male life that contemporary audiences expect today – one that includes homo-affectionate friendship, romantic connection, and intersectional identity. I was invited to bring an iteration of MOTHA to the New Museum. I began to think what a regional trans history could focus on. When I realized the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots was approaching, I knew it would be a good time to think critically about how this history is remembered. I invited almost a dozen artists to reconceptualize monuments to commemorate this hirstory, knowing full well that monuments themselves are a fraught way to point to history. Can you tell us about your work in the current exhibition “Queer California: Untold Stories” at the Oakland Museum of California? A stereotype too far? Reading artworks from gay male perspectives, however, can risk occupying a two-dimensional or prejudicial view on the gay male experience. That to be gay, or resort to same-sex love or desire while at sea, is some sort of default or secondary option to being heteronormative. A lesser option perhaps, stigmatised in the lusty sailor trope.In spite of the Victorian era’s prudish reputation, there are many possible traces of transgressive desire in its art – in Frederic Leighton’s sensuous male nudes, for instance, or Evelyn De Morgan’s depictions of Jane Hales. Simeon Solomon attracted sustained criticisms of ‘unwholesomeness’ or ‘effeminacy’ – terms which suggest disapproval of alternative forms of masculinity as much as same sex desire. Yet other works which might look queer to us passed without comment.
Let's consider the process of queering the sailor in art and its function. To be a mariner, or more explicitly to escape the societal conventions of life on the land was powerful indeed and recognised by queer audiences historically. Same-sex desire and affection was a facet of life at sea – in single-sex environments freedom of movement and access to different cultures afforded more options. Gay bars in ports around the world mirrored this, as did the spread of the queer language Polari (a way to speak openly and in code without overtly incriminating yourself). He transcends 'normality' – becoming fetishised by travel, danger, and an all-male environment. The artist Carr was conscious of the sitter's appeal (Easton was specifically chosen by the artist) and his image went on to feature as a poster for a Navy Leagues exhibition in 1946. Consciously or unconsciously, the artist offers us the quintessential gay male fantasy from history. Demuth was an openly gay artist based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (USA). He is known by most museum-goers as a precisionist architectural watercolorist. Yet, Demuth also painted more homoerotic works of art set in bathhouses and other accepted homosocial environments.I paint people I love, and I paint using the vocabulary of paintings I love. So the influence is very straightforward; if I see a painting that sets me on fire, I want to try and make something that feels like that. I make drawings in my sketchbooks, which I use like journals. I also reinterpret paintings directly with my own characters, or work from photographs I have found or taken. The most important and frequent source of inspiration is drawing from memory. How does memory impact your compositions? Where can I view this artwork?: The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA (USA) (Museum Council Gallery (Gallery 254)) Many of the narratives behind your work are very personal. Would you say that making work that is closely tied to your experiences is empowering? That you can see Ivan Bubentcov's inspirations in his work -- Tom of Finland, Ettienne, Sean -- only enhances the experience. Below, in Ivan's own words, a bit about him and his work: Statues at this time were no longer static and archaic. Instead, they showed idealized realism and movement in posture as the figures place their feet forward and stand in contraposto (meaning, that weight is shifted to one side of the figure.)
Such objects clarify that centuries of erotic art have existed out in the open, barely concealed through evocations of antiquity and other allegorical guises. How does he go about finding them? “Once we were established as collectors,” Leslie explained, “we’d get these calls from people we’d never heard of.” Dealers and artists came out of the woodwork. “There simply were not other avenues to publicly show this work,” he said. The Sleepers.” Petit Palais. October 03, 2016. Accessed August 2017. http://www.petitpalais.paris.fr/en/oeuvre/sleepers. During his time as a realist, women’s rights movements in the US and across some of Europe were just getting into their places of mobilization. While many men at this time were “distraught”, they were also calmed by art of a voyeuristic nature to that surged at this time as Romantic authors and artists hinted into the “secret” and romantic lives of women. James has also contributed interviews with the world's leading actors and filmmakers to outlets such as MTV, Bauer, Global, Marie Claire, Loaded, HeyUGuys.com, Fun Kids, W!zard, ITN Productions, MyMovies, Unilad and Joe.co.uk. Even though there are a few more LGBTQ+ stories (love and otherwise) represented in mainstream media, I’m still left extrapolating from centuries of heteronormative art and history. For the most part, our histories remain hidden. Since getting my MFA, I’ve used my paintings to rewrite history through an LGBTQ+ lens. I’ve done that through my World War II cross sections as well as my Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas series.
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Think of the horrible view we have of sex, even though we’re the most overly sexualized country in the world,” Leslie mused. “Scratch the surface and there is this Puritanism that goes on and on and on.” That “American prudishness,” he said, was absent in European culture. He recalled going to a government-sponsored gay bar in Amsterdam: “The first thing you saw when you walked in was this huge, long bar with a gigantic picture of Queen Juliana smiling out at her gay subjects.” I started MOTHA in 2013. I originally conceived of it as a poster, Transgender Hiroes (2013), but over the year it took me to assemble it, I began to imagine all the different forms this museum could take without it being an actual physical space. The project continues to be a celebration of trans art and history as well as a critique of the elements at play that have kept trans, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, and non-binary identities marginalized.
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