Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation

 

The Narcissus of St. Paul's, 1964     The Narcissus of Mayfair Towers, 1964

"American Kuoros" is a notebook of ideas around a subject. Each three hole punched 6" x 9" page was painted on both sides, and kept in a loose leaf binder. Thus presenting the complete original series of 49 two-page spreads on a gallery wall is impossible. However, Titolo has favored the idea of inexpensive reproductions since the 1960's, and the book and other images made in the same period were presented via color laser print copies at the Leslie-Lohman Gallery in November, 1998. Politics, Wall Street, and Homosex Begun as a seriocomic view of the battle of the sexes, "American Kuoros" was a reaction to the impossibly false sexual stereotypes we followed. From gun toting super-butch John Waynes to sweet swooning Marilyns, the playing out of male and female roles in America was so patently false that both sexes already looked dead to me. What was to come was the final battle, but it wouldn't be male vs. female, but the battle of all monosexes against the new species of humans, hermaphrodites.  Along the way I discovered references in Greek mythology that the first humans were hermaphrodites, but the gods became jealous of their power and divided them into two sexes to weaken them; there is also a reference in the Kabbala to the effect that toward the end of the world, all will become hermaphrodites. In the 1960's it became obvious we didn't have to await the end of the world: we could soon design ourselves into doubling our pleasure. From that semi-farcical beginning, the book developed into a more serious view of American values, including views on homosexuality, class warfare, government power, love, and art. It wasn't plotted in advance, but grew as the image and mood arose. In the 1960's I dreamed of color reproductions to come. And now, thanks to Director Wayne Snellen and the vision of Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman, having it on the web is an absolutely unforeseen delight.

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The. Titolo