As art holds an sential place the LGBT muny, The Advote striv to she a light on the work of gay, lbian, bisexual, and transgenr artists who are movg the cultural needle wh the artists spotlight sectn. Disver slishows om gay art opengs across the world wh mediums that range om photographs, to oils, to sculpture, and more. Read terviews and profil of ntemporary artists who portray LGBT history, sex, culture, and polics wh their works. Browse through the artist spotlight and other sectns that celebrate gay culture.
Contents:
- THE GAY FIGURE ARTISTS ARE REIMAGG THE MALE GAZE
- 'BEEFKE HERO': JOE PHILLIPS BRGS GAY SUPERHERO OUT OF THE CLOSET (PHOTOS)
THE GAY FIGURE ARTISTS ARE REIMAGG THE MALE GAZE
Why Donatello’s famoly androgyno sculpture of “David” should be tepreted as a reflectn of gay culture Renaissance Florence." data-reactroot=" * gay art hero *
Donatello moled the heads of many of his sculptur and statu om Roman bts, and art historians now generally believe that David’s was based on Anto, Emperor Hadrian’s gay lover.
'BEEFKE HERO': JOE PHILLIPS BRGS GAY SUPERHERO OUT OF THE CLOSET (PHOTOS)
* gay art hero *
Janson first posed that the artist himself was gay (or at least mored to be) 1957, and that Donatello’s personal bgraphy drove his homoerotic pictn of David. Janson’s alln to Donatello’s homosexualy, and his suggtn that the artist’s inty might have played a part this masterpiece, put cril nos out of jot. Yet this reactn was particularly rash, nsirg that 15th-century Florence was nsired a gay mec.
Florence had such a reputatn for beg acceptg of homosexualy that the French lled gay sex the “Florente Vice, ” and Germany, Florenzer was slang for a sodome. Conservative monks railed agast this acceptance for more than moral reasons, worryg that the growg trend of homosexual relatns between unmarried men would lead to a cy-wi populatn cle.
AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTWorkg largely outsi the gallery system, a group of illtrators is revivg the disciple and refg how queer bodi are reprented MacConnell, “Ernie” 2014, waterlor and pen on paperLAST FALL, IN a ty apartment downtown New York, a 30-year-old gay physique mol named Matthew Williams stood naked agast a whe backdrop ont of the gay artist John MacConnell. Over the next 2, 000 years, pturg the naked male form beme an sential artistic skill, one that reached s apotheosis Wtern culture durg the Italian Renaissance, when homosexual sire was subtly exprsed Donatello’s bronze “David” (cir 1440) and Caravagg’s patg “The Micians” (1597), where the tradnal female me is replaced wh a band of boys, partially robed togas, referencg a Greek and Roman perd which homoeroti was a part of society.
From Wonr Woman to Northstar, here are some of the most groundbreakg LGBTQ characters and gay superhero Marvel and DC Comics non. * gay art hero *
Classics profsor Andrew Lear, 59, who now ns Osr Wil Tours, a pany that offers excursns foced on implicly gay art and history major while some old masters fetishized the male body barely d ways, the ia of an openly queer artist exprsg his sir om a queer perspective was only born the last century. Ined, cricism of works like Cadm’s durg an era which homosexualy was still forbidn phed many of the artists to the unrground, om where they’re still beg unearthed today.
(It’s perhaps not cintal that Alan Hollghurst’s latt novel, “The Sparsholt Affair, ” a gay retellg of Bra the 20th century, clus a 1940s-era artist tryg to pursue a classmate at Oxford by drawg his figure. ) Frato, “Tangere” 2016, lored pencil on paper, urty of the artist and Antoe Levi, Paris; Jordan Mejias, “Dare Me, ” 2017, monochromatic waterlor on paper, om the book “Of Art and Men” (Photograph: Hans-Ge Pospischil) © Jordan MejiasIN THE YEARS after Cadm, other gay perspectiv on the male body found their way to visual culture, though they’ve typilly been nsired taboo or hypersexual.
And spe the “queer enlightenment” of the 1970s and ’80s, when Robert Mapplethorpe, the photographer Rotimi Fani-Kayo and others brought man-on-man sex to the mm, there rema few celebratory imag of openly gay men Wtern visual art. Williams’s afternoon ssn wh MacConnell, fact, is part of a recent revival of male figure drawg among ntemporary gay artists — cludg Kou Shou, Mart Bedolla and Stephen McDermott — who all specialize stripped-down reprentatns of largely young whe men.