The gay world is often reprented as some sort of monolhic whole that has the same culture. That is a lie. It is actually broken down to a handful of substrata to which each gay belongs. Here they are.
Contents:
- BROOKLYN ARTIST LOUIS FRATO IS DEPICTG GAY MALE SEX AND INTIMACY THE MORE CHILL GEN Z ERA OF PREP
- THE GAY FIGURE ARTISTS ARE REIMAGG THE MALE GAZE
- A HANDY GUI TO ALL GAY MEN
BROOKLYN ARTIST LOUIS FRATO IS DEPICTG GAY MALE SEX AND INTIMACY THE MORE CHILL GEN Z ERA OF PREP
And his pouchtastic ways, as the float snaked past Trafalgar Square on London's Gay Pri march. This rual and sport is lled Donga or Sagenai (Sagay). To someone (like this wrer) wh only a middlg knowledge of art, ’s hard not to immediately thk “gay Pisso” upon first seeg the patgs of Louis Frato, 27, the Brooklyn-based pater who’s gotten a lot of attentn om the art world recent years and jt fished up his send solo show, Morng, at New York Cy’s Sikkema Jenks & Co.
Frato’s imag of hunky, furry, young gay men havg sex or lyg around, alone or together, are cidly non-naturalistic, boastg a lot of the Pissoque featur of mornism, such as body parts pated out of proportn or perspective, or broken up to cubistic ponents.
From his stud Bhwick, Brooklyn, Frato talked to TheBody about patg durg a panmic, about jt how “gay” (or not) he wants his work to be, and his relatnship to an olr generatn of queer artists who ma work durg the AIDS epimic. "Courty of Sikkema Jenks & I was thkg about how a gay artist like, say, Mapplethorpe wanted to take the most betiful photographs of flowers, so he wouldn’t get pegged as “jt” a gay artist. I was tryg to be more hont or accurate about a gay experience by plitg .
THE GAY FIGURE ARTISTS ARE REIMAGG THE MALE GAZE
Maybe my pictg sex so much was not really as much for gay people as was for straight people, this ncept of performg an inty to be nsumed. Murphy: You wanted to show banal aspects of your gay life like dirty dish the sk or a msy dner table, not jt sex?
There’s many thgs clud a gay experience. "Courty of Sikkema Jenks & So, I’m cur, how do you feel about a non–art expert like me lookg at your work and immediately thkg, “gay Pisso”? I don’t know if I believe that Pisso beg referenced by a straight artist is more appropriate than him beg referenced by a gay one.
That’s kd of a ghettoized ia of history, where there’s hegemonic art history on one si and gay art history on the other.
A HANDY GUI TO ALL GAY MEN
Murphy: Are you fluenced by any gay artists particular? I read some reviews that noted your work seemed to pict gay sex a ls anx, post-AIDS era.
I had a teacher llege, Ken Tisa, who liv here New York, who was showg me artists who were makg work then, and I thought, “This is my direct history or leage as a gay pater. 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.