By revisg and refutg the cultural history of the Wt, this group is g time as s primary medium, lookg backward to rm a different kd of gay future.
Contents:
- HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
- NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE
- EDWARD GAY (ARTIST)
HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
Bgraphi and analysis of work by Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgenr+ intified artists, or works associated wh LGBT+ topics. * 19th century gay artists *
In the last 50 years alone, Keh Harg’s drawgs have raised awarens for the AIDS crisis of the ’80s; Nan Gold’s hntg photographs of New York’s unrbelly has shed light on the queer muny; Robert Mapplethorpe shocked the public wh his graphic imag of gay sex acts, promptg a revaluatn of bety and propriety. In the meantime, we’re takg you on a big gay art history tour through bohemian f, funky studs and dty mm basements to retroduce you to some well-known nam that you might not have known were queer. It’s a potent and necsary remr that gay love is jt about sex, pecially nsirg how lbian upl have appeared throughout Wtern art history: eroticized, fallen, impure, wchy and bched.
NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE
Classil mic wouldn't be what is today whout the great gay matros. * 19th century gay artists *
Pavg the way for Pop, Rschenberg’s work might not openly reference his sexualy like some other artists’, but cric Robert Hugh lled Monogram “one of the few great ins of male homosexual love morn culture. Ptr Ilyich TchaikovskyWhile historians Rsia nied for centuri that Tchaikovsky was gay, Eastern voic recent years have e around to the notn the tenrns the poser's mic me om gay sir. At one pot, he had a well-known affair wh royal mic page B, acrdg to Gee Haggerty's Encyclopedia of Gay Histori and Cultur, but the boy was imprisoned when the poser fell out of favor wh the kg.
Freric ChopThe legendary 19th-century Polish poser wrote love letters to Tyt Wojciechowski that revealed his persuasn, acrdg to historian Michel Lariviere, and there is evince he had male lovers before that as well, cludg the openly and famoly gay Marquis Cte. Francis Jean Marcel PoulencAn out poser early-20th-century France, Poulenc created mic opposg the homophobic Nazis durg the 1940s, acrdg to Daisy Falurt's L Six.
EDWARD GAY (ARTIST)
Durg Prohibn, gay nightlife and culture reached new heights—at least temporarily. * 19th century gay artists *
Sensual physil closens, androgyno figur, and natural environments are all elements ed by the Pre-Raphael, but Solomon ed this athetic style to reprent folks like him and to explore homoerotic sire and romance. By the mid-1920s, at the height of the Prohibn era, they were attractg as many as 7, 000 people of var rac and social class—gay, lbian, bisexual, transgenr and straight alike. The Begngs of a New Gay World“In the late 19th century, there was an creasgly visible prence of genr-non-nformg men who were engaged sexual relatnships wh other men major Amerin ci, ” says Chad Heap, a profsor of Amerin Studi at Gee Washgton Universy and the thor of Slummg: Sexual and Racial Enunters Amerin Nightlife, 1885-1940.
By the 1920s, gay men had tablished a prence Harlem and the bohemian mec of Greenwich Village (as well as the seedier environs of Tim Square), and the cy’s first lbian enclav had appeared Harlem and the Village. Each gay enclave, wrote Gee Chncey his book Gay New York: Genr, Urban Culture, and the Makg of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, had a different class and ethnic character, cultural style and public reputatn. Gay Life the Jazz AgeAs the Uned Stat entered an era of unprecented enomic growth and prospery the years after World War I, cultural mor loosened and a new spir of sexual eedom reigned.
Though New York Cy may have been the epicenter of the so-lled "Pansy Craze, " gay, lbian and transgenr performers graced the stag of nightspots ci all over the untry. ”At the same time, lbian and gay characters were beg featured a slew of popular “pulp” novels, songs and on Broadway stag (cludg the ntroversial 1926 play The Captive) and Hollywood—at least prr to 1934, when the motn picture dtry began enforcg censorship guil, known as the Hays Co.
"Queer Art" beme a powerful polil and celebratory term to scribe the art and experience of gay, lbian+ people. * 19th century gay artists *
In the mid- to late ‘30s, Heap pots out, a wave of sensatnalized sex crim “provoked hysteria about sex crimals, who were often— the md of the public and the md of thori—equated wh gay men. ” By the post-World War II era, a larger cultural shift toward earlier marriage and suburban livg, the advent of TV and the anti-homosexualy csas champned by Joseph McCarthy would help ph the flowerg of gay culture reprented by the Pansy Craze firmly to the natn’s rear-view mirror. It did not stop the great paters of the Renaissance, many of whom are today acknowledged as gay, om portrayg the sexual allure of famoly, the var versns of St Sebastian’s martyrdom, showg a spicly mcular torso punctured by arrows, achieved inic stat among homosexual admirers who rpond not only to his physil bety, but also to his plight as a tortured, yet steadfast, martyr.
ESTIMATE: £18, 000–25, took until the epochal social chang of the 1960s (and specifilly the crimalisatn act of 1967 the UK) for homosexualy to prise self out of the closet, and art acted as both talyst and rerr of the moment.