33 Portras of Gay Men Isolatn

Contents:

• THE GAY FIGURE ARTISTS ARE REIMAGG THE MALE GAZE
• GAY MEN POSTERS AND ART PRTS
• NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE
• GAY HSAR ART: GRAN WHO STCK A POSE FOR A EE LUNCH

THE GAY FIGURE ARTISTS ARE REIMAGG THE MALE GAZE

The imag are often ma rponse to and nversatn wh historil artworks and referenc such as the vanas motif, relig patgs, and inic gay artists who shaped my unrstandg of queer self-reprentatn, like Pedro Lemebel, David Wojnarowicz, and Robert Mapplethorpe.

Fortunately, alternative events to the official gay Pri are now available: ralli, march, and parti that rever the urgency, ant, and cril spir that our social polics need and serve. They look like relatively simple flat patgs, but the procs mak them very plited to driv you to document LGBTQ spac, as you did your project The UK Gay Bar Directory? We started filmg gay bars wh a GoPro mera 2014, wh no particular oute md.

GAY MEN POSTERS AND ART PRTS

Before we knew Candy Bar, the Gee and Dragon, and Joers Arms—all by, succsful, and culturally important gay bars London—had shut their doors followed by a spate of other closur natnally.

K., forcg ourselv to male-domant or male-only spac, filmg gay bars, and creatg an archive that would functn both as an art work, a public rource, and a ll to arms. Often, we would arrive a cy and a much-loved gay bar had closed s doors only days before. We explore how the ntemporary gay rights movement has aligned self wh the state, the police, the ary, and wh property velopers at the expense of s own muny.

NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE

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.

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.

GAY HSAR ART: GRAN WHO STCK A POSE FOR A EE LUNCH

MacConnell and Williams met 2016 at the artist Mark Beard’s drawg salon, which now attracts a rotatg st of about 30 gay artists.

The nus “give gay people their history, ” Beard says.

Outled his signature blue pen, ’s a tribute to the sorts of mundane gay moments that are rarely celebrated art or popular culture. Gay figure artists are followg the homoerotic tradn tablished by Mizer, Fland and the artist Tom Bianchi, whose photographic nus have seen a renaissance after he published “Fire Island P, Polaroids 1975-1983” 2013.