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2003 |
THE ARCHIVE |
Issue #11 |
The Journal of the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation |
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Patrick
Angus
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Slave
to the Rhythm: An unknown
master’s epic journey through Jan. 6 through
Feb.14, 2004 Once
called “the Toulouse-Lautrec of Times Square” by a noted
New York playwright, Patrick Angus (1953-1992) is to the gay underground
of New York’s 1980s as the famous French painter was to the outré
Paris of a century earlier. Much as Lautrec devoted his art to the
risqué world of dance hall girls and prostitutes, Angus focused
his incisive eye on New York’s largely neglected gay underground–the
hustler bars, baths and male burlesques at the fringes of gay life. The
inaugural exhibition in The Leslie-Lohman Gallery’s new Undiscovered
Gay Masters Series, Slave to the Rhythm: Patrick Angus and the
Gay 80s offers the first opportunity in more than a decade to
view this largely lost world through the eyes of an exceptionally
gifted painter. Unknown
to all but a small group of collectors, Angus remains largely unrecognized
by the art establishment. The reason for this neglect is not hard
to find. Angus knew that the art world had no place for a gay painter
who unsentimentally depicted gay life as he personally saw it. “Gay
men have no honest images of themselves,” he said, so he created
probing portraits of ordinary gay men in crowded bars and steamy baths,
and the not-so-ordinary hustlers and erotic dancers who entertained
them. In
full command of his talents as a painter of He
was not so afraid of dying, Angus said, as that his work would end
up in a dumpster. He need not have been concerned, for in the final
months of life his paintings were exhibited in three one-person shows
and he sold six canvases to an admiring David Hockney. On his deathbed
at St. Vincent’s Hospital, looking over the proof sheets of Strip
Show, a soon to be published book of his paintings, he whispered,
“This is the happiest day of my life.” The new book, Patrick Angus: The L.A. Drawings, featuring an introduction by Douglas Turnbaugh and co-published by The Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation and Berlin’s Schwules Museum, will be available at the exhibition — Christian Bain
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Gilbert
Lewis |
Boys
to Men March
9 through April 17, 2004 Philadelphia artist
Gilbert Lewis is a man engaged An improbable dichotomy
of detachment and engagement pervades Lewis’ work, while a refreshing
bluntness in his portraits imparts an unexpected edge–at once startling
and engaging. Lewis’ portraits present his young male subjects
almost as an object of contemplation, conveying the act of looking at
the model and the model’s awareness of being looked at, while drawing
the observer into the disconcerting intimacy of this relationship. Lewis handles his
brush with the exacting precision of a realist-abstractionist. His portraits
convey his own distinctive approach to psychological realism as his
young subjects sometimes stare beyond the picture plane or look away
from the viewer as if in search of a secret self. His smaller portraits
provide particularly intimate insights into the characteristic sensitivity
of young men, both gay Lewis is more interested in matter-of-factly capturing a moment in each young man’s life than in imposing his own psychological interpretation or telling a narrative story. Using light as it falls over flesh, fabric and hair, he invokes a strong sense of introspection through meticulous attention to the subtle gesture, gaze and carriage of his subjects. His images convey the singular unease common to young men in transition, for whom the very act of modeling is a new and daring experience.
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Bob Ziering |
Bob
Ziering May
18 through June 26, 2004 How many dimensions
does it take to portray the ecstacy of love? If you’re Bob Ziering,
the answer isn’t easy to pin down. Viewing one of Ziering’s
erotic works, says Gay City News arts writer Stephen McDermott, is a
process of discovery. “The details are unimportant because the
emotional content is so beautiful and the entire composition so completely
satisfying.” McDermott was referring
to a 1972 four-panel pencil and pastel work on paper, entitled Bed,
but his observations are equally true for the broader body of Ziering's
lyrical, soft focused, and mystically sensuous oeuvre. At the outer edges,
blue-grey tones can suggest rumpled sheets, while in the inner spaces,
red tones clearly define body parts–hands, feet, faces, buttocks
and cocks–only hinting at the whole man, felt but never fully seen.
Is there one man alone in bed? Is he with another man? Are there others?
The answers remain tantalizingly elusive. “Ultimately,” McDermott
observes, “the mind doesn't try to connect the body parts, [but]
rests in the beauty of the connections that are there, unseen to the
eye, but known by the spirit..” Long a fabled name among his fellow artist-illustrators, Bob Ziering is recognized for his peerless ability to express exuberant motion in line and color. If you’ve read a magazine any time during the past several decades you’ve probably seen his work...but never like this. The Mystical Ecstacy of Love reveals the richness of Bob Ziering’s never-before exhibited erotic work–both drawings and paintings. Spanning a period of some 35 years, his works commingle time and spirit with sex and lust to project magically mysterious images of ecstatically transcendent erotic love. This is one show you do not want to miss.
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Featured in Trivero Hall |
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January 6 through February 14, 2004 Working in a trance-like state, Jarrod Beck virtually channels his evocative drawings, turning physical features of his subjects into cinemascopic human landscapes in shades of blue and grey.
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Doug
Blanchard March
9 through April 17, 2004 Doug Blanchard’s
gay reinterpretation of the Passion of Christ weds a shockingly modern
vision with classical compositions reminiscent of artists Poussin and
Tiepolo.
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Comments? Questions? Requests? E-mail us: The Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation
©Copyrights to all exhibited artworks belong to the artist. All rights reserved.
©2000 - 2008 The Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation
