The Archive: Issue 53 Spring 2015 by Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art

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THE ARCHIVE 53 The Journal of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art

CONTENTS THE ARCHIVE NUMBER 53 SPRING 2015

INTERFACE: QUEER ARTISTS FORMING COMMUNITIES THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA WALT CESSNA, GUEST CURATOR

About the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art

The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art is the first and only dedicated LGBTQ art museum in the world with a mission to exhibit and preserve LGBTQ art and foster the artists who create it. Accredited by the New York State Board of Regents, the Museum has over 22,000 objects in its collections, spanning more than three centuries of queer art. The Museum hosts 6-8 major exhibitions annually, artist talks, film screenings, panel discussions, readings, and other events. In addition, the Museum publishes The Archive, a quarterly educational art publication, and maintains a substantial research library. The Museum is the premier resource for anyone interested in the rich legacy of the LGBTQ community and its influence on and confrontation with the mainstream art world. There is no other organization in the world like it.

ON THE DOMESTIC FRONT: SCENES OF EVERYDAY QUEER LIFE

IT’S TIME TO JOIN: BECOME A MUSEUM MEMBER

GALLERIES OF INTEREST

The Leslie-Lohman Museum is operated by the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1987 by Charles W. Leslie and Fritz Lohman, who have supported LGBTQ artists for over 30 years. The Leslie-Lohman Museum embraces the rich creative history of the LGBTQ art community by informing, inspiring, educating, entertaining, and challenging all who enter its doors.

JAMES M. SASLOW, CURATOR

HUNTER O’HANIAN, MUSEUM DIRECTOR

BARBARA MCBANE

QUEER ABSTRACTION

Founders

EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND AT LESLIE-LOHMAN

Board of Directors

JERRY KAJPUST, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR EXTERNAL RELATIONS

NEWS FROM PRINCE STREET PROJECT SPACE

ROB HUGH ROSEN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR PROGRAMMATIC OPERATIONS

THE COLLECTION

WINDOW GALLERY THE ART OF ZACHARI LOGAN

AN INTERVIEW BY JOHN CHAICH

Back Cover:

Current and Upcoming Exhibitions at Leslie-Lohman Museum

Charles W. Leslie J. Frederic Lohman (1922–2009) Jonathan David Katz, President Steven J. Goldstein, Vice-President Ray Warman, Treasurer James M. Saslow, Secretary Meryl Allison Deborah Bright

John Caldwell Jeff Goodman Cynthia Powell Robert W Richards Margaret Vendryes Peter Weiermair Jeff Weinstein

Co-Founder & Director Emeritus Charles W. Leslie

Staff

Hunter O’Hanian, Museum Director Wayne Snellen, Deputy Director for Collections Rob Hugh Rosen, Deputy Director for Programmatic Operations Jerry Kajpust, Deputy Director for External Relations Branden Wallace, Collections Manager Todd Fruth, Office Manager Kris Grey, Exhibitions and Communications Manager Cupid Ojala, PSPS Coordinator Harvey Redding, Leslie-Lohman Studio Em Miller, Speakers Series Coordinator Noam Parness, Administrative Assistant–Curatorial Stephanie Chambers, Bookkeeper Daniel Sander, Receptionist Johanna Galvis, Receptionist

Volunteer Staff

Cryder Bankes, Library Nancy Canupp, Marketing, Operations Scott Dow, Collections Steven Goldstein, Collections, Administration Tasha Gross, Museum Fellow Daniel Kitchen, Museum Advocate Stephan Likosky, Collections

Tai Lin, Collections Chuck Nitzberg, Events Matthew Papa, Intern, Collections Cynthia Powell, Marketing, Development Hannah Turpin, Collections James Powell, Special Projects James Schlecter, Events Jamie Wollberg, Social Media

The Archive John Burton Harter, Star, 1995, Oil on board, 24 x 30 in. The John Burton Harter Charitable Trust

This issue of The Archive is made possible by a generous donation from the

John Burton Harter Charitable Trust.

The Archive is an educational journal published by the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art to educate the general public about the Museum, its activities, and gay art. Tom Saettel, Editor Joseph Cavalieri, Production and Design

©2015 The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. No part of this journal may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. Copyrights for all art reproduced in this publication belong to the artists unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

The Archive is available free in the Museum, and is mailed free of charge to LL Museum members.

The Leslie-Lohman Museum

26 Wooster Street, New York, NY 10013-2227 (212) 431-2609

info@leslielohman.org, leslielohman.org Gallery Hours: Tues.–Wed. 12-6pm, Thur. 12-8, Fri–Sun 12-6, Closed Mon. Closed on major holidays and between exhibitions. FRONT COVER: Dietmar Busse, Michael Bilsborough, 2014, Gelatin silver print with ink, 14 x 11 in. Courtesy the artist.

EXHIBITION ISSUE 53

Interface

Queer Artists Forming Communities Through Social Media May 15– August 2, 2015 Leslie-Lohman Museum Walt Cessna, Guest Curator

Art should be experienced

as if you are falling down the rabbit hole and have no idea what to expect. I want it to slap me in the face with its correctness and tickle my brain with too many thoughts. I’ve never been shy with my opinion, as my fashion terrorist past will attest, but I was stumped a few years back about how to remix both my visual and verbal vocabulary in a way that allowed me to keep my voice in sync with a randomly targeted set of new images. This was exactly the reason social media was so appealing to me when I was searching for a new medium to showcase my writing and photography around 2005, back in the days of MySpace. I dipped my toe into the then-uncharted web waters and discovered that blogging was an art form in itself. Facebook, however, completely changed the game and opened a rare free portal for artists to literally reinvent the way art is shown and sold in the cyber age. The Facebook wall is the perfect space for content, rather than just for socialization. After thirty-plus years of producing editorial content—photography and writing—for magazines like PAPER and newspapers like The Village Voice, I was tired of the medium and its inherent tediousness. The web offered immediacy and speed, no more waiting for a publication to come out. The typical three-month lead time was narrowed down to a few seconds. I started posting all my past photography and short stories, and I built a strong following. Then I started to shoot new work, and that’s when the online press noticed. Eventually galleries sought me out and finally publishers and collectors. All from posting a few pictures. I also discovered that I wasn’t alone. Artists in all mediums were utilizing the internet in ingenious and often DIY ways—a virtual gallery of universal artists coming together in one easy-to-Google place. The benefits are many. No gal-

Erika Keck, Untitled (Rose), 2014, Acrylic on polyester mesh, 60 x 60 in. Courtesy the artist and envoy enterprises, New York.

lery markup, no censorship (on tumblr at least, Facebook sadly lags in this department), direct communication with the viewer and hopefully collector; basically there are no “no’s”. Anything and everything goes, but only the truly unique and original seem to thrive. Although it’s easy to build an audience of enviable online numbers, it’s those who mix up their art like a cocktail that succeed—a little of this, a whole lot of that, and the viewer is left shaken or stirred. In other words

50% art, 25% content, 25% commerce. And it’s all free. It was against this personal backdrop that I wanted to curate a show of work by artists who had a similar engagement with various social media platforms. My idea was simple: I wanted to assemble queer work made by mostly New Yorkbased artists with active studio practices. I wanted them all to have (or have had) active relationships with social media. I wanted to understand how this truly

The Archive: The Journal of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art ● NO 53 ● SPRING 2015

EXHIBITION ISSUE 53

21st-century confection could create community and bring success to these artists. Scooter La Forge is a good example of this online art phenomenon. His fans are legion—his one-of-a-kind t-shirts are everywhere. A viable scene emerged, and he has become not only a rising art star but an internet heartthrob, with as many fans for his often beautiful and bared body as his brilliant El Greco-on-meth paintings. Slava Mogutin and his partner Brian Kenny also utilize the web, going even further showcasing their own, at times controversial but always correct work, as well as their collaborative effort, Superm. Superm has recently spawned one of the best-conceived and executed streetwear lines by artists in many years. Mixing elements of photography, collage, and illustration, the clothes benefit greatly from their basic styles allowing the printed artwork literally to jump off the fabric. Wearing an original Scooter La Forge, or donning a Superm ensemble, is to be transformed into a walking, breathing art exhibit on the runway of life. And it’s mostly available online only. While some of the artists in Interface also show their work in galleries and museums across the globe, it’s really their utilization of social media and online presence that generate a wider and more

(left) Gio Black Peter, You Can’t Kill Me, 2014, Acrylic and oil pastel on printed paper (NYC subway map), 32.5 x 23 in. Courtesy the artist. (bottom, left) Maria Piñeres, Willy, 2013, Cotton floss and found magazine page on perforated paper, 12 x 9 in. Courtesy the artist and Walter Maciel Gallery, Los Angeles.

diverse audience. The year 2015 seems like the time when everything is hitting a zenith, and, because we are all becoming more and more connected, the entire way we view the visual world has changed. Some say for the worse, I say for the better. Kids today are exposed to so many amazing images, in multitudes of mediums, and also exposed to art and its history at an age much younger than in my generation. From the sheer amount of seriously awesome art I encounter on a daily basis, I have to say that the children of the internet age are turning out some of the most awe-inspiring work as they grow up and take the entire art industry down an entirely new path. And that is, as I like to say, #completelycorrect. There are many mediums represented by the 30 artists in Interface. Their work is arresting and almost maddeningly inspired by influences beyond New York City; but without question, living and working here influences their art making. I encountered almost all of these artists online first, and some have become good friends. I have collaborated, photographed, or posed for a handful—which only goes to show how strong the sense of queer community is and how social media has brought artists together who might never have met or come to experience each others’ work. In truth, the show is a bit of a hodgepodge—painting, photography, illustration, video, installation, performance,

The Archive: The Journal of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art ● NO 53 ● SPRING 2015

sculpture, embroidery and needlepoint— everything but the proverbial kitchen sink. What I hope the viewer sees is how wide-ranging, diverse, truly unique, and heartfelt the current art scene is. Even though it seems like the mainstream art world is inundated with pieces that are too big, pointless, grossly extravagant, or just plain old ugly living-room wall pieces for well-heeled connoisseurs who lack any kind of original taste or true appreciation, the personal convictions of these artists give me hope. Although I hope that their work appreciates in value, I doubt that’s how any of them define success. They are all extremely generous in sharing their work and connecting with their followers. And it’s because of social media that these connections are more often and easily made. When everything seems to come together at just the right time, as it did in the early-1980s East Village art scene with its ready-for-prime-time art heroes (especially Keith Haring and David Wojnarowicz), it becomes one of those moments that years later people look back on and wonder what it was like to be there. Without comparing any of these artists to their predecessors, it’s hard to deny the influence of that era’s do-it-yourself aesthetic and punk ethos in their work. An almost seamless current of creative energy courses through the streets, galleries, and, most importantly, on the internet today that didn’t exist ten years ago.

EXHIBITION ISSUE 53

(above left) Benjamin Fredrickson, Anonymous (Spandex), 2007, Polaroid, 4.25 x 3.25 in. Courtesy the artist and Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York. (above) Derek DeWitt, Stella Rose Saint Clair, 2013, Digital C-print, 22 x 17 in. Courtesy the artist. (left) Slava Mogutin, Red Hat (Xevi), NYC, 2003, Archival optic C-print, 20 x 24 in. Courtesy the artist.

By utilizing social media as a viable alternative to the usual age-old route of finding galleries or museums to which to exhibit, artists can take their lives and career in their own hands. While some post or blog new work, others dig deeper. Natasha Gornik and Benjamin Fredrickson’s blogs showcase not just their photography, but take the viewer into forays of daily life ranging from highly erotic sexual scenarios (in which they often participate), to, in Gornik’s case, a gorgeous plate of half-eaten scrumptiously disturbing food. Call it the Nan Goldin school of personal documentation taken to decadent extremes of

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EXHIBITION ISSUE 53

(top right) William Spangenberg, Tranimal 1, 2015, 3D plastic print, 18 x 6 x 6 in. Courtesy the artist. (bottom right) Natasha Gornik, Andi, 2014, Photographic inkjet print, 20 x 24 in. Courtesy the artist.

brutal yet beautiful honesty. God only knows how Goldin would have utilized the internet had it been around during her early years, but she along with contemporaries like Robert Mapplethorpe and Duane Michals certainly set the bar for exposing oneself in as raw and revealing a way as possible (albeit nicely executed and framed). Just what constitutes queer art in 2015 does not necessarily rely upon sexually provocative images; rather, it is an extension of the multi-identities queer artists proclaim for themselves or simply allow their work to occupy. When you look at Erika Keck’s abstract painting, Rose, there is nothing on the canvas that would identify Keck as a transgender artist. The painting simply asserts that she is a very talented artist, and although she has a strong queer identity, the work is allowed to speak completely for itself and extend its dialogue with the viewer. I came across Keck on Facebook and we bonded quickly. Five years later she is, ironically, no longer utilizing social media, which makes even more sense for her inclusion in this show. Eventually, no matter how many clicks of the ubiquitous “Like” button an artist might get, it will always be the one-to-one connection in the real world that resonates most. Nothing could make that point better than seeing all of this work together in one place.

Interface: Queer Artists Forming Communities Through Social Media features Scooter La Forge, Slava Mogutin, Brian Kenny, Maria Piñeres, Joel Handorff, William Spangenberg, Leo Herrera, Ethan Shoshan, Muffinhead, Natasha Gornik, Isauro Cairo, Brett Lindell, Alesia Exum, Bubi Canal, Dietmar Busse, Benjamin Fredrickson, Derek DeWitt, Walt Cassidy, James Salaiz, Tom Taylor, Diego Montoya, Erika Keck, Gio Black Peter,

The Archive: The Journal of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art ● NO 53 ● SPRING 2015

Ben Copperwheat, Chuck Nitzberg, Jordan Eagles, Naruki Kukita, Adrian Carroll, George Towne, Todd Yaeger, and Chick Byrne. n ............................................................

Walt Cessna is the author of Fukt 2 Start With: Short Stories & Broken Werd (sixteenfourteen. com/fukt.html), photographer (waltcessna.tumblr. com), editor, and publisher of the annual art and literary journal VACZINE (blurb.com/b/5466251vaczine-1). Interface is his first curated exhibition for the Leslie-Lohman Museum.

UPCOMING EXHIBITION ISSUE 53

On the Domestic Front: Scenes of Everyday Queer Life Aug 14 – Oct 25, 2015 Leslie-Lohman Museum James M. Saslow, Curator

Before coming out to my

father, I tested the waters by casually remarking that I’d met a gay couple who’d been living together for twenty years and seemed to have a nice relationship. “People like that don’t have relationships,” he sneered, “they just have sex.” Before and after which, implicitly, they vanished into some limbo of suspended animation, with no other “real life.” But, as I knew even then, queer folk do have real lives. Since long before DOMA was overturned (or even passed), we have spent most of our time at home or in other routine physical settings, alone or together, doing what everyone has to do: eat, drink, wash, play, go to work, go to the gym. By World War I, gay and lesbian artists were documenting, celebrating, and/or satirizing our daily lives; they just couldn’t show such work in mainstream galleries or museums. Even today art about domestic life remains neglected—that is, if they are homosexual. It’s ironic that for the last decade or more, art historians and social historians have focused new attention on images of the world inside the traditional home, inspired in part by an admirable feminist awareness that much of women’s creativity was formerly restricted to the domestic sphere. But researchers and curators peering closely at that hetero galaxy tend to miss other constellations outside the officially recognized universe. To help overcome this historical myopia, this exhibition will include some 65 works from LLM’s permanent collection, many never displayed before, that answer the question: “What do we do when we’re not having sex?” The images range widely in subject matter, style, and time, from the “Gay 1890s” to the present. Encompassing three themes—home, work, and play— they will offer rare and often touching or funny glimpses of LGBT life today, yesterday, and, in a few pioneer survivors, a century before yesterday. Among the earliest works is a 1930s locker-room scene by the grandfather of gay realism, Paul Cadmus. Featured works

spanning all the decades since offer a revealing chronicle of changing fashions in dress, décor, and lifestyle, from 60s hippies in San Francisco to London’s post-modern punk dykes. Alongside paintings by boldface names like Cadmus and Bloomsbury artist Duncan Grant will be such unique items as a glimpse inside a 1960s gay-bar interior by a little-known artist, Gertrude Berger, and a painted advertisement for a 1970s Fire Island party. Also on display will be a rare photo of a Victorian lesbian artist painting her lover Sarah Bernhardt, and scenes from queer experience in hotels, hospitals, trailer parks, auto repair shops— plus a couple of film-noirish paintings for the covers of those sensationalized 1950s pulp novels in which the lovers always end up alcoholic, separated, or dead. Over a third of the images are by or about women, a testimony to the Museum’s ongoing efforts to gender-balance the collection. In the traditional categories of subject matter, these works would be labeled “genre”—scenes of everyday life. The people are ordinary, often anonymous; the settings are mundane and familiar; the

(above) Saul Bolasni, Untitled (Portrait of man with book), 1959, Ink and watercolor paint on paper, 17 x 13.75 in. Gift of the artist. (below) Hinda Schuman, Hotel California, 2008, Digital print/ digital photograph, 12.5 x 21.25 in. Gift of the artist.

dominant mode is realistic, not imaginary. In that hierarchical system, genre painting was ranked lower than that of images of the powerful, the historic, or the spiritual. And indeed, such a private, individualized world might seem disconnected from the “important” public battles of queer political and artistic life. But the show’s title, Domestic Front, is a military term, clearly meant to equate the essential activities of daily living—which must go on even under attack—with the battlefront proper of guns and govern-

The Archive: The Journal of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art ● NO 53 ● SPRING 2015

UPCOMING EXHIBITION ISSUE 53

(above) Frank Hallam, En Masse Sunners seen from Pier 45, 4/25/1982, 1982, Digital print from slide, 13 x 19 in. Gift of the artist. (left) JEB, Lori and Valerie at Wrenchwomen, an all-women auto repair shop in Washington, DC, 1978, Silver gelatin print (printed 1997), 7 x 10 in. Foundation purchase. (below) A. Winter Shaw, Boys Bathing, c. 1910, Watercolor on paper, 20.5 x 21.5 in. Gift of Peter Harvey.

ments. And in fact, the public representation of private, non-sexual queer lives has long been an active front in America’s ongoing culture wars. George Segal’s sculpture for Sheridan Square commemorating Stonewall—depicting two fully-dressed same-sex couples simply sitting on a Village park bench and standing conversationally nearby— took 13 years to overcome neighborhood protests against any image that might imply “normalization” of banal queers like these, even though their real-life counterparts were visible on every block. This domestic front has long been especially important to queers, particularly before Stonewall. Barred from visibly being themselves, and from seeing any positive representation of their world in the public culture, gays and lesbians found the comparatively safe social and physical spaces where they could act out, and record, their lives: behind closed doors or far from home. If these closeted realms were emblematic of repression, they were also a safe space for self-fashioning, free of the mental corsets in the “outside world.” The show’s prime example will be a striking group of watercolors by the expatriate artist Saul Bolasni, who painted himself and his overdressed 1950s friends in their painstakingly decorated Paris apartments, quintessential images of the artsy fairies from our grandparents’ day. These men could compensate for social stigma with money and taste, creating a sophisticated private world that was implicitly superior to middlebrow mainstream culture. The Stonewall generation mockingly labeled their ostentatious stylishness “piss-elegant,” but to give credit where credit is due, they were exercising their right to what the nation’s Constitution says should be ensured for all, “domestic tranquility.” The exhibition’s theme of domesticity is especially timely in a decade that has seen the unprecedented mushrooming of gay marriage and child rearing, and their gradual acceptance both legally and socially. The goal of queer liberation has shifted from our right to be different and erotic toward the right to do what everybody else does. This show will contribute to the long-running socio-political debate within the LGBT world: Are we, apart from our sexuality, “just like everyone else,” or do we have a distinctive sensibility or style? n ..................................................................

James M. Saslow is a professor of art history at the City University of New York and secretary of the board of trustees of the Leslie-Lohman Museum. He has published widely on LGBTQ art and culture, including Ganymede in the Renaissance: Homosexuality in Art and Society (1986) and Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality and the Visual Arts (1999).

The Archive: The Journal of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art ● NO 53 ● SPRING 2015

THE MUSEUM ISSUE 53

It’s Time to Join: Become a Museum Member Hunter O’Hanian, Museum Director

Last year, more than 20,000 people

came to exhibitions and events at the Museum. Young and old, gay and straight, the Museum is building a new audience as we strengthen every part of our programming and activities. A major part of our efforts includes strengthening the Museum’s membership program. It’s important for you to be someone who supports us. We are New York’s premier destination for exhibitions that are unambiguously gay and might be denied access through other mainstream venues. We are welcoming and open to all who value a quality museum experience. LeslieLohman Museum members receive special benefits, along with the satisfaction of knowing that they are supporting our many activities, including exhibitions, talks, films, readings, and other programs. In addition, your support helps us maintain our collections, which contain more than 22,000 objects. Membership levels are designed to allow everyone to join:

Basic Artist/Student/Senior $25 Individual $40 Couple $60 l Home delivery of The Archive journal l 10% discount on books l 10% discount on LLM Tours l $5 discount on classes

Supporter

Individual $150 Couple $200 All the above, plus... l Invitation to VIP opening events l Limited edition Museum print Reciprocal membership at over 600 museums in North America (NARM)

Patron $500 All benefits are for two people All the above, plus... l 20% discount on framing at Conservation Framing (NYC) l Dinner with Museum Director l Private curator tour of a Museum exhibition l Underwrite 3 artist level memberships l Free parking while visiting the Museum

Benefactor

Limited edition Museum prints; choice of print available as a membership benefit at the Supporter, Patron, and Benefactor levels. (top) Kris Grey, (Sub)merge, Performance Still (The Ice Palace at Cherry Grove, NY), 2015, Limited edition of 25, C-print, 10 x 14 in. Performance and Concept by Kris Grey. Photograph by Kris Grey and Jade Yumang. (above) Gwen Shockey, Move in and out, through skin and bone, through the circular frame of the eye, 2015, Limited edition of 25, C-print, 10 x 14 in.

$1,000 All benefits are for two people All the above, plus... l Private artist studio tours l Use of gallery for special event/party If you are not a Member, take a moment and go to Leslielohman.org to sign up. Also be sure to sign up for our weekly email messages at Leslielohman.org and follow us on Facebook. It is the best way to stay informed about all of the exhibitions and events at the Museum. n

The Archive: The Journal of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art ● NO 53 ● SPRING 2015

EXHIBITION ISSUE 53

Galleries of Interest

See Current and Upcoming Exhibitions at Leslie-Lohman Museum on the Back Cover

NEW YORK CITY

BROOKLYN

Bernarducci Meisel Gallery, 37 W. 57 St., New York, NY bernarduccimeisel.com thru Apr 25 Marcus Leatherdale: Hidden identities–Andy Warhol NYC

Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY brooklynmuseum.org thru May 24 Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic

BGSQD, The Center, 208 W 13 St NYC bgsqd.com Apr 2-May 31 Efrain Gonzalez: Meatpacking District photos; Jun 5-TBD Alesia Exum and Claire Fleury ClampArt, 521-531 W. 25 St., NYC, clampart.com. Apr 2-May 9 Luke Smalley Retrospective; May 14-Jun 20 From Boston to New York: David Armstrong, Nan Goldin, Mark Morrisroe; May 14-Jun 20 Will McBride: Salem Suite photos from elite German boys school: Jul 9-Aug 22 Lindsay Morris: You Are You, gendernonconforming children and their families

Figureworks, 168 N. 6th St., Brooklyn, NY, figureworks.com thru May 3 Crystal: 15 Year Anniversary Exhibition; May 8-Jun 7 Mary Westring: Subway Series

NORTHEAST A Gallery, 192 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA agalleryart.com Jun 3-9 One + One, Encaustics; Jun 17-23 Donald Beal; Jul 1-7 Sutton Foster, Julian Harvard; Jul 8-14 Christopher Sousa; Jul 15-21 Robert Goldstrom DeLuca, 432 Commercial St. Provincetown, MA pattydelucagallery.com Firehouse Gallery, 8 Walnut Street, Bordentown, NJ, firehousegallery. com Work by Eric Gibbons Lyman-Eyer Gallery, 432 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA, lymaneyerart Rice/Polak Gallery, 430 Commercial St., Provincetown, MA ricepolakgallery.com May 2-Jun Gallery Artists; Jul 9-29 Deb Goldstein The Andy Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky St., Pittsburgh, PA, warhol.org thru Apr 19 Someday Is Now: The Art of Corita Kent May 30-Sept 6 Pearlstein, Warhol, Cantor: From Pittsburgh to New York

Will McBride, Mike und die anderen schmeissen sich mit Wasser (Mike and the Others Throwing Water at Themselves), 1963, Gelatin silver print. ©Will McBride, Courtesy of ClampArt, NYC.

Grey Art Gallery, 100 Washington Square E. nyu.edu/greyart Apr 21-Jul 11 Tseng Kwong Chi: Performing for the Camera Monya Rowe Gallery, 34 Orchard St. monyarowegallery.com May 31-Jun 28 Larissa Bates: New work Munch Gallery, 245 Broome St., NYC, munchgallery.com thru Apr 19 Bubi Canal: Magic Garden Museum of Sex, 233 Fifth Avenue, NYC, museumofsex.com Participant Inc, 253 E. Houston St., NYC, participantinc P•P•O•W, 535 West 22nd St., NYC, ppowgallery. com Apr 23-May 23 Timothy Horn: Supernatural Team Gallery, 83 Grand St. teamgal.com thru May 3 Alex Bag, Marc Hundley, Santiago Sierra; May 3-Jun 7 Tabor Robak: Fake Shrimp Team Gallery, 47 Wooster St. teamgal.com thru Apr 26 Alex Bag, Marc Hundley, and Santiago Sierra The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave., New York, NY metmuseum.org thru Jun 14 Tullio Lombardo’s Adam: A Masterpiece Restored The Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53 St., New York, NY moma.org thru Jun 7 Björk Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Ave. whitney. org May 1–Sept 27 America Is Hard to See: Stella, Poitras, Wojnarowicz

Carolyn Sherer, Annonymous Family, 2012, Pigment printon Hahnemule Photo Rag paper, 36 x 36 in. Courtesy Stonewall National Museum and Archives. Living In Limbo: Lesbians In the Deep South.

SOUTH Stonewall Museum, 2157 Wilton Dr., Wilton Manors, FL stonewallnationalmuseum.org thru Apr 26 As Seen On TV; LBGT TV Characters, 1954-1979

CANADA Ottawa La Petite Mort Gallery, 306 Cumberland St., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, lapetitemortgallery.com thru Apr 26 Windows From Prison; May 1-31 Rowan Corkill; Jun 5-28 Alex Bartosik: Alien Sightings; Jul 3-Aug 2 Andrew Moncrief: Return of the Prodigal Son

EUPOPE Berlin NGBK, Oranienstrasse 25, Berlin ngbk.de

Wessel + O’Connor Fine Art, 7 N. Main St., Lambertville, NJ, wesseloconnor.com

Schwules Museum, Lutzowstrasse 73, Berlin, schwulesmuseum.de thru May 17 30 Years of Positive Life: Berlin Aids-Hilfe double anniversary show; thru May 17 Porn That Way; thru May 17 Leonard Fink; Jun 26-Dec 1 Homosexuality_ies

WEST

Groningen, NL

Antebellum Gallery, 1643 N Las Palmas Ave., Hollywood, CA, antebellumgallery.blogspot.com GLBT History Museum, 4127 18th St., San Francisco, CA, glbthistory.org/museum thru May 3 Biconic Flashpoints: 4 Decades of Bay Area Bisexual Politics; thru May 3 1964: The Year San Francisco Came Out; May 15-Dec 31 30 Years of Collecting Art That Tells Our Stories Ongoing Queer Past Becomes Present JDC Fine Art 2400 Kettner Blvd, #208, San Diego, CA thru May 30 Spring Salon: Collectors Edition ONE Archives Gallery & Museum, 626 N. Robertson Blvd, West Hollywood, CA Jun 6-Autumn Art AIDS America ONE Archives Gallery & Museum, 909 W. Adams Blvd, Los Angeles, CA onearchives. org thru Jul 11 Transgender Hirstory in 99 Objects: Legends & Mythologies; thru Jul 11 Watchqueen

Galerie MooiMan, Noorderstationsstraat 40, 9717KP, Groningen, NL, mooi-man.nl Radiant Affinities biography of Cornelius McCarthy, 310 pages. Onsale at Leslie-Lohman and Mooiman.

Madrid La Fresh Gallery, Conde de Aranda 5, Madrid, lafreshgallery.com Ongoing LaBruce, Kenny, Mogutin

Munich Kunstbehandlung/Saatchi Gallery 40 Müller Strasse 40, Munich, kunstbehandlung.de Apr 23-May 26 The Male Figure 6

Paris La Galerie au Bonheur du Jour, 11 rue Chabanais, Paris, aubonheurdujour.net thru Apr 24 Will McBride Salem Suite Ongoing Erotic objects, paintings and drawings. Publications.

Vienna

Team Gallery 306 Windward Ave., Venice CA teamgal.com thru May 3 Andrew Gbur: Paintings; Jun 28-Aug 7 Sam McKinniss: Dear Metal Thing

Leopold Museum, at the MuseumsQuartier, Vienna leopoldmuseum.org Apr 24-Sep 14 Tracey Emin/ Egon Schiele Where I Want to Go

MIDWEST

Museum Centre Vapriikki, Alaverstaanraitti 5, Tampere, Finland thru Sep 6 Sealed with a Secret Correspondence of Tom of Finland

Leather Archives & Museum, 6418 N. Greenview Ave. Chicago, IL leatherarchives.org

The Archive: The Journal of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art ● NO 53 ● SPRING 2015

Tampere, Finland

OUTSIDE OUR WALLS ISSUE 53

Queer Abstraction Barbara McBane

In the late autumn of 2014,

San Francisco’s Queer Cultural Center and the California College of the Arts presented Queer Abstraction, an evening of conversations about current interests in abstraction in the queer art world. Participants included Professors Julia Bryan-Wilson (UC Berkeley) and Tirza True Latimer (CCA) along with artist Harmony Hammond, a long-time advocate for lesbian and queer art and (in the words of the program notes) “one of today’s boldest abstract painters.”1 Where to place Hammond’s work within a larger history of monochrome painting, and what the significance of “near-monochromes” might be for “queer abstraction,” broadly speaking, were questions that hovered over the evening’s conversations and were answered aslant, in true queer form. Bryan-Wilson began by helpfully setting parameters for discussion in the form of two questions: What do we mean by ‘queerness’? What do we mean by ‘abstraction’? She noted the multifaceted slipperiness of the terms, and proposed an open-ended definition of Queer Abstraction as “a resource for all those in the margins who want to resist the demands to transparently represent themselves in their work.” Latimer followed by introducing Hammond’s work, starting from the 1970s, when Hammond used abstracted biomorphic forms and domestic materials to evoke lives and cultures “outside the art world’s official purview”—that is, lives lived in resistance to demands for transparency and the imposition of marginalizing categories and naming. Latimer noted that this early work has received disproportionate attention, notably in landmark feminist and queer retrospectives like WACK! and In a Different Light. Hammond’s more abstract, near-monochromatic recent paintings have tended to be critically overlooked. Latimer (as curator) and Hammond sought to redress this neglect by mounting a show at the Red Line Center for Contemporary Art in Denver, Colorado, earlier in 2014 (Becoming/Unbecom-

Harmony Hammond, Blanco, 2012-2013, Oil and mixed media on canvas, 90.5 x 73.5 in. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York. Art ©HarmonyHammond/Licensed by VAGA, New York.

ing Monochrome) where a number of Hammond’s large abstract paintings were on display. While appearing at first to consist of near-solid color fields, on closer inspection, the surfaces of these paintings reveal layers of undercoats and use texture, shadow and light to “interrupt” the presumed purity of the monochrome. These paintings are “not true monochromes,” said Latimer, but are “becoming/unbecoming monochromes”: they simultaneously “cite and refute the traditions associated with monochrome painting.” While Latimer mentioned minimalist monochrome painting in passing, she did not stop to define what “the traditions associated with monochrome” might be. Bryan-Wilson directed Latimer back to-

ward this omission during the round-table discussion, querying her about “clustering these works of Harmony’s under the rubric of the monochrome” which “has a very specific polemical history.” Bryan-Wilson invited Latimer to expand on how/why she was “staking a claim in monochrome history” for Hammond’s late abstractions. Hammond followed Bryan-Wilson’s and Latimer’s presentations with a lively survey of four fellow queer abstractionists: Linda Besemer paints layers of acrylic on glass surfaces, then detaches the accumulated layers to create folded, hanging acrylic “blankets.” Hammond noted that a painting with no supports, “made entirely out of itself,” can function as “a metaphor for queer identity.” Jonathan

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VanDyke uses performance, submission/ dominance choreography, drip painting, and other techniques to generate “durational paintings.” Cutting, stitching, and costume design are also part of VanDyke’s work, and he specifically acknowledges feminist influences. Josh Faught’s assemblages also owe a debt to feminist art, drawing from fiber arts and needlecraft. In pieces like Triage (2009), scraps of fabric and objects hang off surfaces “like paint but not paint.” From the varied body of work of Vienna-born, New Yorkbased Ulrike Müller, Hammond honed in on a series of small enamel paintings—“pendants”—in which minimalist abstract forms are rendered in baked enamel to imply gendered or re-gendered bodies. Hammond’s four artists suggested coordinates for an expansive terrain of Queer Abstraction but, interestingly, none was even remotely a “monochrome” or “near-monochrome” painter. Rather, all four seemed to draw on early feminist interests in crafts and the textile arts. Hammond’s presentation thus raised questions about where she might place her “near-monochromes” in a

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(clockwise from top left) Harmony Hammond, Rib, 2013. Oil and mixed media on canvas, 90.25 x 70.5 in. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York. Art ©HarmonyHammond/Licensed by VAGA, New York. Josh Faught, Triage, 2009, Hemp, nail polish, spray paint, indigo, logwood, toilet paper, pins, books, plaster, yarn, handmade wooden sign, denim, and gloves, 80 x 120 in. Courtesy the artist and Lisa Cooley, New York. Josh Faught, How to Beat the High Cost of Living (Detail), 2009, Handwoven cotton, nail polish, toilet paper, silk flowers, indigo, sequins, and ink, 92 x 72 inches. Courtesy the artist and Lisa Cooley, New York. Linda Besemer, Little Double Bulge, 2008, Sheet of acrylic paint over aluminum rod, 24 x 22 in. Folded. Courtesy the artist.

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landscape of Queer Abstraction where so much of the work relies on strategies rather different from her current ones. At one point toward the end of the evening, Latimer observed that “monochrome is an effect, clearly, as much as the black square is an effect; black is an effect.” The comment suggested directions for rethinking monochrome. When Derek Jarman revolted against visual representation during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s/90s in his film Blue, he did it by evacuating the visual image of everything except chromaticity: the color blue. Blue is an effect, a category with limitless associations. Considered as “pure color” (a “reading” which Hammond actively resists), the monochrome, in part, signifies a category, a container, that carries a history of connotations and meanings both rich and dangerous. The language of color—its words, names, and supposedly ‘pure pigments’ (black, blue)—is not unlike systems of signification built around such categories as ‘male,’ ‘female,’ ‘heterosexual,’ ‘homosexual’, languages constructed from apparently pure objects which, when examined closely, are no more than contingent, performative effects (as Judith Butler famously argues). So it is no surprise the queer abstractionist might wish to examine inherited categories—including colors—minutely and deconstructively, returning them to their constitutive parts: paints made of plants, clay, or plastic; support surfaces fashioned from fiber and cloth; armatures assembled from wood, metal, glass. On close inspec-

tion, inherited categories—whether of color, gender, or sexual orientation—dissolve and disappear. In the end, Hammond’s presentation came to the question of where/how her recent work stakes a claim in the history of monochrome painting obliquely (read: queerly), with a guided tour, not through a genealogy of monochrome forbears, but through a gallery of queer abstract “impurists”—artists like herself, less interested in transcending the materialities of the art object than in immersing us as thickly as possible in its messiness. n Bryan-Wilson is associate professor of art history at the University of California, Berkeley; Latimer heads the Visual and Critical Studies Program at California College of the Arts. The event took place on October 31, 2014, as part of the “Queer Conversations on Art and Culture” (QCCA) series cosponsored by the Queer Cultural Center and CCA’s graduate program in visual and critical studies. Many thanks to the QCCA Organizing Committee for their assistance: Tina Takemoto, Tirza T. Latimer, Neil Schwartz, Greg Crysler, and—especially—Rudy Lemcke for providing

documentation.

.............................................................

Barbara McBane is an independent writer, filmmaker, and an award-winning sound editor. Former head of critical studies at the Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art in France, she has published in Art Journal, Film History, and elsewhere. She holds an interdisciplinary Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Cruz. (below left) Jonathan VanDyke, No Name, 2013, (installation view). On Stellar Rays, New York. (below) Jonathan VanDyke, With One Hand Between Us (Day 2), 2011, 40hour performance for three actors and installation with three sculptures. Scaramouche, New York. (above right) Ulrike Müller, Fever 103, 2010, Vitreous enamel on steel, 15.5 x 12 in. (right) Ulrike Müller, Fever 103, 2010, Vitreous enamel on steel, 15.5 x 12 in.

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Educational Opportunities Abound at Leslie-Lohman Jerry Kajpust, Deputy Director for External Relations

The Leslie-Lohman Museum

has been developing and expanding its educational outreach with the addition of exhibition tours, free and open to the public, primarily offered on the weekends.

Guest Docent Tours during the

run of Classical Nudes the Making of Queer History:

Roberto C. Ferrari, Curator of Art Properties at Columbia University, who oversees the University art collection. He received his Ph.D. in art history from the CUNY Graduate Center, with a focus on nineteenth-century European art, and he is a noted scholar on the life and work of the gay Jewish artist Simeon Solomon. Deborah Bright is a Brooklyn-based photographer, writer, and educator. Prior to her appointment as chair of fine art at Pratt Institute, she held a joint appointment as professor of photography and history of art/visual culture at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her photographic projects have been exhibited internationally. Catherine Lord is professor of studio art and affiliated faculty in the Department of Women’s Studies and the Department of Visual Culture at the University of California, Irvine. She is a writer, artist, and curator whose work addresses issues of feminism, cultural politics, and colonialism. Barbara Kellum teaches Roman art and architecture at Smith College. She is the author of numerous publications on the monuments of Augustan Rome and on the material culture of Pompeii. Questions concerning gender and sexuality, the art of freedmen and freedwomen, and practices of viewership and display are hallmarks of her work. Margaret Rose Vendryes, Ph.D. is an artist and Distinguished Lecturer for Performing and Fine Arts, and Director, Fine Arts Gallery, York College, CUNY. Vendryes is concerned with female identities in the African diaspora and is

(top) Docent tour, Classical Nudes and the Making of Queer History, with Deborah Bright, on November 29, 2014. (above) Docent tour, Classical Nudes and the Making of Queer History, with André Dombrowski, on January 3, 2015.

deeply committed to contributing to the multiethnic legacy of American visual art by making such art and teaching about that which has already been left to us by others. André Dombrowski is associate professor of art history at the University of Pennsylvania, where his research centers on the arts and material cultures of France and Germany in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, with an emphasis on the histories of science, politics, sexuality, and psychology.

Guest Docent Tours during the run of Irreverent: A Celebration of Censorship:

Alex Donis is a Los Angeles-based artist whose work examines and redefines the boundaries of religion, politics, race, and sexuality. Interested in toppling societies’ conventional attitudes, his work is often influenced by a tri-cultural (Pop, Latino, and Queer) experience. He has worked extensively in a variety of media, including painting, installation, photography, video, and works on paper. (Sat., March 28)

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Noah Michelson, May 2.

Sheila Pepe, April 8.

Heather Cassils, April 22. Photo C2014 Robin Black.

Jennifer Tyburczy, curator of Irreverent, is assistant professor of cultural-critical rhetoric and performance studies in the Program of Speech Communication and Rhetoric and the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Her book, Sex Museums: The Politics and Performance of Display, is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press. Tyburczy received her Ph.D. in performance studies from Northwestern University in 2009 and her M.A. in English literature from the University of Texas, Austin in 2003. (Sat., April 4)

Leslie-Lohman Speakers Series

talk about the two most recent works, Cuts: A Traditional Sculpture and Becoming An Image, and unpack the process, historical context, and points of inspiration which inform these works. Additionally, Cassils will discuss new works in progress and share yet to be seen excerpts with the audience. Most recently at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, Cassils’s work was highlighted in two exhibitions, After Our Bodies Meet and The Classical Nude.

Michelle Handelman is a New York City based artist and filmmaker whose work looks at sexuality and desire from a queer feminist perspective. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film, Media and Performing Arts at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York City. Handelman received her M.F.A. from Bard College and her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her latest project Irma Vep, The Last Breath received a Guggenheim Fellowship and an exhibition at The Henry Gallery museum, Seattle is forthcoming. Noah Michelson, Executive Editor of Gay Voices at The Huffington Post, received his MFA in poetry from New York University. His poems have been featured in The New Republic, The Best American Erotic Poetry from 1800 to the Present, and other publications. Before joining The Huffington Post, he served as senior editor at Out magazine, contributed to Details and Blackbook, and served as a commentator on CNN, BBC, Fusion, Inside Edition, and Sirius XM, among other outlets. (Sat., May 2, 6:30 – 8:30)

The 2015 Leslie-Lohman Speakers Series kicks off this April following previous Museum lectures from exceptional artists such as Catherine Opie, Robert Wilson, James Bidgood, Kent Monkman, and Lyle Ashton Harris. In support of LeslieLohman’s mission to educate the public and preserve work that speaks directly to the many aspects of the LGBTQ experience, while fostering the artists who create it, the new series is designed to heighten the level of critical dialogue around LGBTQ art. Jennifer Tyburczy, curator, and artists Alex Donis, Michelle Handelman, Kimi Tayler, Barbara Nitke, and Baris Barlas will begin The Speakers Series on Friday, April 3 with a discussion of the current exhibition, Irreverent: A Celebration of Censorship. The artists and curator will consider the historical, cultural, and political ways in which censorship of queer artwork has inspired and expanded LGBTQ art in the U.S. and around the world. Sheila Pepe will engage the audience in a talk entitled One Lesbian Fem inist: Taking Space and Making Place on Wednesday, April 8. Pepe is best known for her large-scale, ephemeral installations and sculpture made from domestic and industrial materials. Since the mid-1990s Pepe has used feminist and craft traditions to investigate received notions concerning the production of canonical artwork as well as the artist’s relationship to museum display and the art institution itself. In addition, Pepe was featured in the 2014 Queer Threads exhibition at the Leslie-Lohman Museum.

The Leslie-Lohman Museum is very excited to offer this ongoing Speakers Series as an opportunity for the public to learn from and interact with the extraordinary LGBTQ artists of today. All Speakers Series events will be held at the Leslie-Lohman Museum at 6:30pm and are free. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. n

Heather Cassils will present a talk entitled The Body As Social Sculpture on Wednesday, April 22. Elaborating on the idea that our bodies are often formed in relation to societal expectations, Cassils will

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News from Prince Street Project Space Rob Hugh Rosen, Deputy Director of Programmatic Operations

Mar 27-29

Dirty Little Drawings Opening Friday, March 27, 6-8pm. Continuing Saturday and Sunday 12-6pm. Saturday, March 28, 12-6:00pm: Sales continue. Meet the artists and the models that inspire them. Sunday, March 29, 12-6:00pm: Sales continue. Watch as Leslie-Lohman Drawing Studio artists sketch one of their favorite models. From 2003 to 2007, the Foundation sponsored five Dirty Little Drawings exhibitions. These exhibitions were enormously successful, the last one having been accompanied by the release of the Bruno Gmünder publication Dirty Little Drawings. Now, almost eight years later, the popular exhibition is being reprised. Consisting of works on paper produced by members of the Leslie-Lohman Drawing Studio, every piece is identical in size, 5-1/2 x 5-1/2 inches, and identically priced at $60. Viewers are offered the opportunity to become instant art collectors with choices from a vast array of original erotic works by more than 60 artists. Each of these artists approaches his work with singular style and represents masculinity with personal vision. Apr 9-21

Guys and Canyons: Paintings by Delmas Howe Opening Thursday, April 9, 6-8pm, continuing Friday April 10-Tuesday April 21, 12-6pm.

Delmas Howe has a highly esteemed history with the Leslie-Lohman organization, including several solo exhibitions over the years. His work is represented in the Museum’s collection as well as in those of the Albuquerque Museum of Art and the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe. A few years ago Howe exhibited a series of paintings of nearby rock canyons. Viewers said they saw flesh-like shapes in the rocks. This observation inspired him to do a somewhat converse series of paintings in which flesh suggested rocks. Howe feels that our times are in turmoil, and neither new technologies nor the government or the church provide answers to the problems that face us. Howe says “In the rock face you can see that there is no answer…” For Howe the rocks are a metaphor for all that is “constantly changing, moving, turbulent, leading to some unpredictable continuing process”—a process that leaves a visible history of incredible beauty. Howe, a resident of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, will be in New York for the run of the exhibition. May 7-12

Collage, etc.: The Art of Carmine Santaniello and Marc Pelletier Opening Thursday, May 7, 6-8pm, continuing Friday – Tuesday 12-6pm. Collage is integral to Carmine Santaniello’s art and is usually the starting point for each work. Employing the traditional method of cut and glued paper, Santaniello may create new faces out of amassed facial images, add a full body or torso to these faces, include a (top left) Kung Ko, Untitled, 2015, Finepoint marker on paper, 5.5 x 5.5 in. Courtesy the artist. (Dirty Little Drawings) (center left) DAL, Untitled, 2015, Pencil, crayon, and marker on paper, 5.5 x 5.5 in. Courtesy the artist. (Dirty Little Drawings) (left) Marc Pelletier, A New David (detail), 2014, Collage, 15 x 22 in. Courtesy the artist.

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tattoo image, and add elements of his own photographs of exterior environments such as graffiti or street art. Some works remain as collages; many become drawings or lithographic monoprints with the inclusion of Chine Colle. Through the juxtaposition of these techniques and mediums Santaniello creates emotionally charged works of art. Marc Pelletier was cutting and pasting long before the advent of Photoshop. In this first showing of his erotic collages, intimate worlds are created by combining images appropriated from art history, pop culture, and vintage porn. Primarily a painter and printmaker, Pelletier began using collage in the early 1980s upon his arrival in New York City. Responding to contemporary gay life, gender politics, and the proliferation of public imagery, these collages reveal a wry and poetic sensibility. May 29-31

Growing Up in the New York Underground: Photography by Paul Zone Opening Friday, May 29, 6-8pm, with guest host Howie Pyro, and music by DJ, Miss Guy. Continuing Saturday and Sunday 12-6pm. Saturday, May 30 4-6pm: Meet Paul Zone during a presentation of

films and book signing. Produced by Tony Zanetta and Kymara, this is the premiere showing of Paul Zone’s photography in New York City. The exhibit will have selections from the book Playground: Growing Up in the New York Underground published by Glitterati Inc. Paul Zone’s photographs capture the birth and transition of New York City’s Glam and Punk Rock era. His career started in the early 1970s at the age of 14 when he became the singer of his older brothers’ Miki and Mandy Zone’s band, The Fast. Armed with his camera, Zone also photographed parties, back rooms, stages, and the street outside of legendary clubs such as CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City before such legendary stars as Blondie and the New York Dolls began recording. June 5-7

Pages from the Arthur Lambert Notebooks

(top left) Delmas Howe, Guys & Canyons-1, 2013, Oil on canvas, 40 x 38in. Courtesy the artist and Rio Bravo Fine Art Gallery. (right top) Carmine Santaniello, Gaysha, 2014, Lithographic monoprint with Chine Colle, 15 x 11 in. Courtesy the artist. (above) Paul Zone, Divine (the Fun House Disco NYC), 1982, Digital print, 20 x 16 in. Courtesy the artist.

Opening Friday, June 5, 6-8pm. Continuing Saturday and Sunday 12-6pm. Larry Stanton and Arthur Lambert were lovers, friends, and collaborators from the 1970s until Stanton’s death in 1984 at the age of 37 from AIDS-related causes. Stanton was an accomplished painter and draftsman, and had a circle of friends that

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included such notables as David Hockney and Henry Geldzahler. Lambert says: “In the late 70s and early 80s, New York City was a magnet for boys who came here from all over the country. Many were escaping from homes and families where being gay was not accepted. Larry’s looks and personality made him attractive to some of these boys and, in turn, they became willing models. His work provides a telling picture of faces from a segment of New York City life which would shortly disappear with the advent of AIDS.” As a photographer, Stanton collaborated with Lambert, documenting the gay world in their Greenwich Village neighborhood. Their collaboration continued as they travelled together in London, California, Florida, and Fire Island, always keeping a sharp lookout for beautiful young men. The photographs on exhibit are a promised gift by Lambert to the Leslie-Lohman Museum.

props and rephotography. Geana describes rephotography as a process in which he takes a picture, transforms it using other techniques, and then photographs it again. Using themes of luxury and decadence as a starting point, Geana displays such objects as a one-hundred-dollar bill, fake currency, fake diamonds, a skull, a gold gun, shackles, a pitchfork, and a dildo. These objects, created by the artist, are paired with a selection of images of nubile unclad men. In stark contrast to the artist’s commercial work, faces will be hidden or cut off. An audio installation in the gallery hallway greets guests with the artist voicing key words. Attendees are invited to participate by purchasing a photograph, and in doing so will convert the fake money into actual currency. Work that does not find a collector will be destroyed at the end of the exhibition. n

(top left) Arthur Lambert and Larry Stanton, Untitled (California), c. 1970, Silver gelatin print, 8 x 10 in. Courtesy Arthur Lambert. (above) Arthur Lambert and Larry Stanton, Untitled (John Kelley, Greenwich Village), c. 1970, Color photograph, 8 x 10 in. Courtesy Arthur Lambert. (bottom left) Jeff Miller, Wall Shadow, 2005, Charcoal and white chalk on Canson paper, 13 x 8 in. (bottom right) Alex Geana, Man in Gold Mask, 2014-2015, Archival print on Hahnemuhle paper, 22 x 17 in. Courtesy the artist.

UPCOMING AT PRINCE STREET PROJECT SPACE July 24 – 26 The Warrior of Hope:

The Art of Lester Blum

August 21–23 Tenth Zine (zine launch) September 25- 27 Impossible Bodies:

The Art of Cupid Ojala

June 12-14

The 5th Annual Gay Erotic Art Fair Opening Friday, June 12 , 6-8pm. Continuing Saturday and Sunday 12-6pm. Presented by Daniel Kitchen, the art fair is an opportunity for artists who draw, paint, and otherwise portray the male nude to exhibit and sell their work. Some of the artists to be included are: Brendon Connors, Anthony Gonzales, Dallas Goodbar, Peter Harvey, Gilbert Lewis, Alvaro Luna, Jeff Miller, Chuck Nitzberg, Nicholas Rispoli, and Shungaboy. June 25-30

Intended Consequences: The Art of Alex Geana Opening Thursday 6-8pm. Continuing Friday–Tuesday 12-6pm. The artist explores our relationship to money, power, and fragility through a selection of symbols and pushes them forward through

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Leslie-Lohman Collections The Leslie-Lohman Museum

is fortunate in that so many donors and artists wish to be part of this unique institution. In 2014 alone, we received more than 2,000 objects with a total value of nearly $2 million. An equal amount was donated in 2013. As of now, more then three-quarters of the collection has been cataloged. We have accessioned 1,452 objects into the Permanent Collection. You can view all of these items on our website. They are also all on view at the Museum on a tablet at the front desk. We have begun to make more loans from our collection to other institutions. For example, we loaned many objects to the Stonewall National Museum and Archives in Fort Lauderdale, and we have lent a number of pieces to the upcoming national exhibition, Art AIDS America, organized by the Tacoma Art Museum. Objects from the collection are also on loan in New York State Senator

Patricia Cronin, Untitled #108, 1994, Watercolor on paper, 20 x 26 in. Gift of Deborah Bright.

(above) Mickalene Thomas, Afro Muse, 4/10 (Ed 10 + 2AP), 2006/2014, Archival digital print on paper, 10 x 15 in. Foundation purchase with funds provided by Richard Gerrig and Timothy Peterson, and Alix L.L. Ritchie and Marty Davis. (left) Victor Gadino, Perfect Freedom, 1981, Acrylic on board, 14.5 x 19 in. Gift of the artist.

Avel C. deKnight, Untitled, c. 1950s, Pen and ink, 10 x 8.5 in. Gift of Jean Nicolas.

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(right) Julien Outin, Untitled, c. 1960, Pen on paper, 7.5 x 6 in. Gift of Jean Nicolas. (far right) Barbara Sandler, Sirius, 2009, Oil and graphite on paper, 45.5 x 19 in. Gift of the artist. (below) Catherine Gund, Hallelujah! Ron Athey: A Story of Deliverence (the “Film”), 1997, 35mm film (90 minutes). Gift of the artist.

Brad Hoylman’s office as well as in the office of the New York City Councilor Jimmy Van Bramer. The Accessions Committee, now chaired by Board member Robert W Richards, is always looking for new work to add to the collection. Please feel free to contact Museum Director Hunter O’Hanian if you are interested in making a donation. If you are interested in volunteering for the Collections Department please contact either Wayne Snellen, Deputy Director of Collections, or Branden Wallace, Collections Manager, to offer your services—no experience necessary. Keep an eye out for our next exhibition from the collection On the Domestic Front: Scenes of Everyday Queer Life, curated by James Saslow which opens on August 14, 2015. Here are some recent new additions to the collections. n

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(left) Hokey Mokey, Untitled, Mail art, 2010, 4.875 x 7 in. Gift of the artist. Beginning in 1999 Leslie-Lohman started receiving, fairly regularly, mail art from this artist. The pieces arrive in handmade brown paper envelopes, as shown here. The pieces now number 172 and continue.

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The Art of Zachari Logan February 26 to May 3 An Interview by John Chaich

When I look at the work of

Zachari Logan, I hear Kate Bush’s “Under The Ivy,” where she sings: “It wouldn’t take me long / To tell you how to find it / To tell you where we’ll meet / This little girl inside me / Is retreating to her favorite place / Go into the garden / Go under the ivy / Under the leaves / Away from the party / Go right to the rose / Go right to the white rose / I’ll be waiting for you.” Exhibited worldwide, the Saksatoonbased artist frequently features flora and fauna as a motif in his monumental drawings to create a mysterious realm where memory, place, identity, and masculinity intertwine. Across his body of work and particularly in the Eunuch Tapestry 5, on view through May 5 in the Museum’s Wooster Street Window Gallery, he often references his own body, often to scale, amid and covered by nature. For Logan, the natural world is the sensual world—to co-opt another Kate Bush title—and his site-specific installation at Leslie-Lohman feels at once sensual and vulnerable, mysterious and immediate in daylight or under streetlamp. After a walk through the Cloisters in Upper Manhattan to view the Unicorn Tapestries that inspired his Eunuch Tapestry series, the artist and I discussed the relationship between nature and queerness in his drawings, sculptures, and installations.

Your early work featured you as solo subject matter, often against an isolated background. In this way, your work aesthetically and thematically responds to the history of male figure or beauty in classical art history and contemporary gay art. The work is also scaled to your height and as a result feels at once formidable and intimate. How much does working as a gay male artist in Saskatchewan inform this sense of isolation and vastness in your subject matter? The scale and style of my work (especially the earlier figurative work), has always been in an effort to reimagine and focus a queer gaze. I have for a very long time been interested in the idea of undercutting notions of accepted images

of maleness, of queering the canonical imagery that continues to inform so much of contemporary conceptions of gender. In a self-reflexive manner, I deal with the expansive spaces I am surrounded by, and, ironically, the isolation these spaces force upon queer bodies. The use of both epic scale and expansive space in my drawings (whether densely detailed or not) is always a commentary on the spaces queer bodies inhabit both internally and physically. The minimal neoclassical backdrops of my earlier works (frieze-like neoclassical compositions) were responses to queer liminality as a Saskatchewanian for sure. The patterning and denseness of the tapestry drawings forces confinement, or flattening, the way the simple backdrops defined by directional shadows forced a sense of coldness and distance onto the epic-scaled nude portraits.

I’m also intrigued by how your body moves in and out of flora and fauna. In pieces like Green Man, Wild Man, and Emperor’s New Clothes, we see nature on you, like tattoos, hair, even beauty marks. Flora and fauna engulf and form the male figure. Does flora serve as a metaphor for a queerness that willingly engulfs you? The Wild Man and Green Man series as well as the drawing Emperor’s New Clothes are all from a larger grouping of drawings I like to call the “Natural Drag” series, drag in the sense that I am portraying myself as a fantastical character, an embodiment of natural process—participating in the spectacle of nature. Essentially these are elusive characters; historical constructs I find very interesting in part because of their locality in the psyche. They personify landscape, and for me are queerly centered as outsiders. To answer your question about the metaphoric aspects of how I use flora and fauna in relation to my body, I would say that adornment can be celebratory, showing off can be about announcing one’s self, professing freedom and equanimity—interestingly, adornment is also equally about confinement. Embellishment obscures as much as it enhances. Take makeup, for example. Usually one

(top) Zachari Logan, Wild Man 3 (Detail), 2013, Blue pencil on mylar, 42 x 22 in. Courtesy the artist. (above) Zachari Logan, Green Man, 2012, Pastel on paper, 100 x 50 in. Courtesy the artist.

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covers up before they enhance or embellish their features; the act of covering up is thought of as enhancing. One possibly becomes more visible, but visible in an altered manner. In this way, queerness “engulfs” me, as you put it, with visual cues from natural phenomenon, such as at the Mariposa [Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve], where monarch butterflies cover so much of a tree’s branches that they cause its branches to tear off. Extending the self-portrait to the dramatic is a strategy I revisit often.

Likewise, in the Eunuch Tapestry we see in the Leslie-Lohman windows, and in many other pieces, we see you in nature, immersed and intertwined with a voluminous repetition of intricately detailed flora executed by your hand alone. It’s funny that I’ve been curating contemporary queer fiber art, and your Eunuch Tapestry is a (below) Zachari Logan, Eunuch Tapestry 5, 2015, Pastel on black paper, 84 x 284 in. (8 panels). Courtesy the artist. (opposite page top) Zachari Logan hands-on. Photo by Michelle Berg, The StarPhoenix, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

drawing inspired by this medieval textile. How much is the medium— drawing—the message? Is the act of drawing an engulfing, escapist, or even ecstatic process for you? Escapist, partly…ecstatic for sure. But I draw almost every day, so drawing for me is also a natural extension of my body and mind in a very concrete way. I think and philosophize my way through things by drawing, using my hands. Drawing is a very physical thing for me; after a day in my studio working on either the monumental pastels, the smaller blue works on mylar, or (more recently) ceramics, my back, neck, and shoulders ache. The immediate nature of my media also helps me to relate to viewers. Everyone has held a pencil, drawn a map, or sketched something, no matter the outcome, so they in some way can relate, even minutely, to this process. In its didactic for The Unicorn in Captivity that inspired your Eunuch Tapestry Series, the Met notes that the unicorn “is tethered to a tree and constrained by a fence, but the chain is not secure and the fence is low enough to leap over: The unicorn could escape if he wished. Clearly, however, his confinement is a happy

one, to which the ripe, seed-laden pomegranates in the tree—a medieval symbol of fertility and marriage—testify.” By calling this series the Eunuch Tapestry are you responding to the confinement— be it self or socially imposed—of queer desire? Is your eunuch’s or unicorn’s desire happily confined? In these works I embody the unicorn, as a play on words that notably reflects a reimagining of the original narrative (the hunt for an elusive creature, that creature—the unicorn, being an embodiment of love itself) to a more open-ended or ambiguous account of the eunuch. My body is still present, although with less narrative/compositional importance. I am using the motif of the garden to explore ideas, internal states of being, such as memory and recollection (as the flora and fauna depicted is amalgamated imagery from personal journey, creating a magical space born out of subjective experiences.) I would say my eunuch has a desire to understand himself. These are fiercely self-reflexive. Maybe in a way, too, I’m subverting the language about confinement in a medieval sense, to reflect the truly freeing choice to want to marry once one has the actual right to do so.

The Archive: The Journal of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art ● NO 53 ● SPRING 2015

WOOSTER STREET WINDOW GALLERY ISSUE 53

More recently in your practice, you’ve started working in ceramics. In Fountain I, individually cast and hand-placed flowers balance on and overflow from a fountain. This seems to heighten the fragile tension across your work—a balance of the delicate and the brittle. Why did you start working with clay and how does the process of handbuilding—the transformation from liquid to solid thanks to heat and time—fit into your overall visual language or practice? I experience my ceramics as being a natural extension of my drawings. Everything is created through the process of handbuilding, similarly to my drawings that are also made entirely by hand. The fountain itself, contains a bodily reference (that of brittle bone matter), and through piled, placed and overflowing adornment, a passage of time is also recorded, as each time I exhibit this piece it has more flowers, articulating a precariousness that relates to the body as time moves on. In other works you’ve used live flowers that die by the end of the installation. Like clay, this is a

very interesting way of adding a time-based technique that feels very natural (pun intended) to your practice. Does the time-based nature of clay or live material represent a struggle to control or preserve nature or beauty—be it your own physical beauty or the beauty of queer culture? No, it is the reverse I think, releasing the struggle to control and acknowledge the finite—as both beautiful and sad. Clay is an incredibly strong material; my clay fountain will be around for 30,000 years after I die (if its cared for properly), the flowers die within a week, changing rapidly from day to day. I’ve presented my viewers with two romantic extremes so that the idea of preservation is at a certain point futile. When I imagine your Eunuch Tapestry in the Leslie-Lohman windows, I see it as a diorama at the Natural History Museum. What does it mean to you to have this work on display at the world’s only museum dedicated to LGBTQ art, and how does the window context transform the way you see the piece or hope the viewer will see the piece? I love your comments about the drawing

as a diorama—it is for sure. I feel the Window Gallery at Leslie-Lohman acts as punctuation to the programming inside the Museum, a dialogue I am very pleased to be a part of. I was completely taken with the notion of my work being accessible 24 hours a day to the public. There is something so magical about it. I also love the idea of someone happening upon the drawing at night unintentionally; it works so seamlessly into the work’s narrative. And having this drawing in the only LGBTQ museum in the world makes it all the more spectacular. The context is very special to me. I am humbled to be included in the programming of a museum such as this! n ...............................................................

John Chaich is an independent curator, designer, and writer living in New York City.

The Archive: The Journal of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art ● NO 53 ● SPRING 2015

Current and Upcoming Exhibitions at Leslie-Lohman Museum

On the Domestic Front / 26 Wooster Street Irreverent / 26 Wooster Street February 13 – April 19, 2015

Work by artists that has been censored from exhibitions due to its gay and sexual content. Curated by Jennifer Tyburczy. Zanele Muholi, Being (Detail, Ed. 8), 2007. Courtesy the artist and the Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York.

August 14 – October 25, 2015

An exhibition including over 65 works from LLM’s permanent collection depicting scenes from everyday queer life. The work will range widely in subject matter, style, and time, from the “Gay 1890s” to the present encompassing three themes—home, work, and play. Curated by James M. Saslow. Caleb Cole, Refinement and Elegance, 2010, Archival pigment print, 13 x 19 in. Gift of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston.

Interface / 26 Wooster Street

Desire and Difference / 26 Wooster Street

Thirty queer artists, mostly New York based queer artists working a wide variety of mediums that have developed an artistic community through social media platforms. Curated by Walt Cessna.

An exhibition about beauty, eros, and sexuality by contemporary transgender, gay, and lesbian artists of different generations. Curated by Peter Weiermair

Scooter La Forge, Masters of the Universe, 2011 Oil on canvas, 50 x 58.5 in. Collection of David W. Perkins and George Constant.

May 15 - August 2, 2015

November 6, 2015 – January 17, 2016