Gay artist drawings
Like many young artists, Soufiane Ababri found himself a bit stuck when he left art university – with no studio, and no money to rent one. So, he became – in his own, Duchampian words – an artiste de valise. The Moroccan artist, who today divides his time between Paris and Tangier, spent several years moving from one flatshare to the next, making and transporting his artworks, largely drawings, along the way. From , Ababri began titling these pieces ‘Bedworks’ to reflect the fact that he makes them in bed. The series, which is arguably his best-known body of work to date, not only points to its site of production as a space distinct from a traditional studio – historically considered the norm for art movie – but, for Ababri, also operates as a marker of class division and hierarchy.
’No one took me seriously at the beginning because I was functional from my bed,’ he tells me when we meet at a café in Paris’s Marais neighborhood. Our capitalist society runs on efficiency and productivity, whereas ‘a bed is associated with laziness,’ he continues – and is conducive to neithe
Pursuit by Kamna Kirti
Ahoy readers and welcome to the second edition of my newsletter - Pursuit.
As part of the newsletter, I’ll be sharing my exclusive, well-researched and value-packed content on art and entrepreneurship.
I’d also share book, blog and podcast recommendations along with my personal experiments with writing. I’d never spam you. Promise.
Let’s dive straight away into this week’s edition.
This week I wrote about George Quaintance, a homosexual artist who challenged sexuality norms prolonged before we could imagine. He was an American-Virginian region boy who was way ahead of his times. He created homoerotic paintings and drawings of idealized male bodies.
The painting Idyll, caught my attention and inspired me to research Quaintance and his oeuvre.
Don’t you think the painting exudes subtle sensuality? The painting is riddled with numerous symbolism. Feel free to spot a symbolism that I might have missed.
Well, that’s exactly what happened when I published this article. One of my readers gave me an elaborate and insightful comment. He interpreted each pa
Exhibition dates: 5th May &#; 13th August,
Curator: Donald Albrecht
J.C. Leyendecker (American, )
Ivory Soap It Floats
Painting for Ivory soap advertisement,
Gouache on board
Private collection
Image courtesy of the National Museum of American Illustration, Newport, RI
Featured in mainstream national magazines, ads for Ivory soap often depicted scenes of conventional domesticity. Some, however, were erotic, enjoy this one by Leyendecker featuring a man in a floor-length robe, whose crotch is suggestively rendered.
The Eye of the Beholder
&#;Leyendecker&#;s subjects exemplify an elite white masculinity that was hardly representative of the diversity of the Merged States in his age, or since&#; observes Sonya Abrego. The artist&#;s subjects are white, cultured, privileged, &#;upholding racial, social and nationalist hierarchies&#;.
But how representations were and are understood depends on the eye of the beholder. At the time that Lyendecker was painting and illustrating commercial magazines his flirtatious subliminal erotic m
Tom of Finland
Where was Tom of Finland born?
Tom of Finland is the alias of Touko Valio Laaksonen, who was born in in the small town of Kaarina, Finland. His parents were teachers, and from a young age, he was absorbed in the arts, with a particular passion for drawing and playing piano.
When he was growing up, the area was very rural, and he was captivated by the hench muscles and heroic gait of male labourers who worked in his town. The leather boots and workwear of loggers, farmers and fishermen became a finalize fixation and fetish for a young Touko.
In a rare interview from at the California Institute of the Arts, Touko describes the early desires that shaped his life and legacy: "I had erotic fantasies very early already, I would say before I was 10 years old. So I worshipped very much the handsome men in my neighbourhood, and I had a very strong fetish for some reason for leather and boots and everything that was combined with the masculine professions and image."
World War II: Tom of Finland’s first sexual fantasies come alive.
In , Touko moved to Helsi