How Gay Is the Metropolan Mm of Art?

Contents:

• QUEERG THE CATALOGUE: A LOOK AT QUEER, GAY, AND TRANS ART AND ARTISTS
• GAY ART HISTORY TOURS HOMOEROTILLY RETHK THE METROPOLAN MM’S ARTWORK
• GAY SECRETS OF THE METROPOLAN MM - A VIRTUAL TOUR
• ON HIS NYC TOURS, ART HISTORIAN REVEALS ‘GAY SECRETS’ AT THE MET
• WHAT TOOK TO CREATE THE WORLD’S FIRST GAY ART MM
• GAY MOSW · CY GUI

QUEERG THE CATALOGUE: A LOOK AT QUEER, GAY, AND TRANS ART AND ARTISTS

Zanele Muholui is a South Ain artist whose photobook, Fac and Phas, prents portras of black lbian women, trans-men, and gay men, who are ristg homophobia, queerphobia, and transphobia, or who may have also fallen victim to "curative rap" and/or murr. The Passn of Gengoroh Tagame: Master of Gay Erotic Manga illtrat how he broke om the mold of the slim, clean-shaven "Twk" stereotyp of gay culture, exhibg large, mcular, and hairy men (often dubbed "Bears").

Alv Baltrop is a photographer whose book The Piers centers on the terratg Christopher Street Piers, which was a popular statn for gay men to cise, sunbathe, and have public sex. Art+Posive, an affy group of ACT UP NY, ed art and activism to bat AIDS phobia, homophobia, misogyny, racism, and censorship.

A fal suggtn would be Queer Threads, an exhibn talogue om a show at the Llie/Lohman Mm of Gay and Lbian Art New York, which fiber and textil are ed as a medium for explorg queer culture.

GAY ART HISTORY TOURS HOMOEROTILLY RETHK THE METROPOLAN MM’S ARTWORK

The unmentned queer prence his patg igned one of the earlit known s of censorship of a gay artist the Uned Stat. The scholar Richard Meyer wrote Outlaw Reprentatn (2002) that the blond-haired civilian Cadm’s patg fs the characteristics of the gay male “fairy” or “pansy” archetype om the 1930s—a gay man wh feme characteristics and specific queer signifiers. In Cadm’s patg, the effemate blond marks a ntrast wh the mascule servicemen, who wouldn’t have been nsired homosexual the 1930s even if they held same-sex sir.

Gee Chncey wrote Gay New York (1994) that other ditns clu his “plucked eyebrows, rouged lips, powred face, and marcelled, blon hair.

GAY SECRETS OF THE METROPOLAN MM - A VIRTUAL TOUR

The Brooklyn Navy Yard, Tim Square, and var wateronts such as Riversi Park and the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument (the likely settg of this patg) were well-known pick-up spots for gay men the 1920s and ’30s.

Acunts of sailors cisg for gay men and female prostut affirm Navy members’ participatn what Chncey scribed as the “urban evils of cy life.

ON HIS NYC TOURS, ART HISTORIAN REVEALS ‘GAY SECRETS’ AT THE MET

The accsibily of public parks ma them sential entryways for men seekg pannship, and servicemen who cised the spots were enmhed val social circl for gay men.

Art historian Jonathan Weberg not Speakg for Vice (1993) that the general public may not have picked up on the d homosexual inography or history of The Fleet’s In!. Although Cadm was the subject of much art historil lerature the 1930s, the rise of Abstract Exprsnism and the artist’s known homosexualy ntributed to a steady cle scholarship; Cadm was part of a generatn of Amerin figurative artists who fell to relative obscury. It wasn’t until the 1960s and ’70s that Cadm received renewed attentn when he was reclaimed by gay magaz such as Vector.

WHAT TOOK TO CREATE THE WORLD’S FIRST GAY ART MM

At the 2019 exhibn Camp: Not on Fashn, where was placed alongsi Jean Pl Gltier’s dis sailor su riffg on the trope of gay or sexualized sailors tablished by artists like Cadm, Charl Demuth, and Tom of Fland. Cadm’s current receptn reflects shiftg attus toward homosexualy but there are still many cril nsiratns surround the patg. There’s plenty to see at New York’s Metropolan Mm of Art, but only one man is offerg gay art history tours of the venerable stutn.

Through his pany Osr Wil Tours, reports the Daily Beast, 56-year-old art historian Andrew Lear is shg a new light on the Met’s surprisgly homoerotic llectn. In London, Lear hosted “From Edward II to Ian McKellen: the World’s Gayt Natnal Portra Gallery, ” while the Louvre got a siar treatment Paris. This year’s offergs clu an Italian tour October, and a number of gay-foced tours of New York, cludg the two-hour Met vis.

Quiky, a gay travel pany, giv tours of the Vatin that celebrat the homosexualy of Renaissance artists like Michelangelo (see Gay Art Tours of the Vatin Are All the Rage).

GAY MOSW · CY GUI

While the ancient Greek and Roman galleri might seem like a natural startg place, wh their embrace of the male nu and overtly sexual, often homoerotic imagery, pecially on vas, Lear also explor homosexual unrton and them Oceanic works, Renaissance masterpiec, and morn patgs.

“There’s so much homoeroticism the history of art that you n’t keep out that easily, ” Lear told the Daily Beast. Pasquali, Lear wrote on the Gay and Lbian Review, was a famo strato, and the lover of the proment rdal who missned the patg, which promently featur the god’s genalia. The enigmatic actor, art llector, gay activist, globetrotter, and doyenne of the SoHo scene has, along wh his late partner J.

Together, the pair found the Llie-Lohman Mm of Gay and Lbian Art—the first stutn of s kd—which is down the block, on Wooster, unassumg Llie happened to poke his head out to the hallway to terme the e of the ck; before he uld shut the door, a group om the art magaze I worked for had charged their way through. This somewhat jad crew of crics was ankly awed to fd every available surface the dky, crimson Prce Street loft absolutely vered—let me repeat: vered—wh explicly homoerotic art all styl and media, cludg var se-specific murals. At the start of his and Lohman’s llectg days, more than 60 years ago, “gay imagery was unfortunately the hands of pornographers exclively, ” Llie lamented.