Month: May 2015

Robert Siegelman

 

Robert Siegelman, “Mad”

Robert Siegelman works primarily in drawing and photography. He teaches at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston, and works with artists privately. He leads workshops and classes throughout New England, and for many years co-directed “Art In Amsterdam,” a residency program for artists and art students.

His work is in many collections including the Boston Public Library, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), The Harvard University Art Museums, The DeCordova Museum, Lincoln MA, The Leslie + Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in New York City, The Leather Achives in Chicago, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Siegelman’s work has been exhibited and published internationally. Notable exhibits include shows at the Leslie + Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, and “untitled male id” at the Angus-Hughes Gallery in London. In 2017 his drawing installation, “Do You Worry a Lot” was shown in a one person exhibit at the Winfisky Gallery at Salem State University, in Salem MA. In 2018 a one person photography exhibit, titled “In the Flesh” was held at HallSpace in Boston.

He is included in the book 100 Boston Artists by Chawky Frenn, and Self Portraits by Others, organized by Hunter O’Hanian.

Siegelman is represented by Gallery NAGA in Boston.

Ralph Nicholas Chubb

Ralph Nicholas Chubb

Ralph Nicholas Chubb (1892 -1960) was an English poet, printer, and artist. Heavily influenced by Whitman, Blake, and the Romantics, his work was the creation of a highly intricate personal mythology, one that was anti-materialist and sexually revolutionary.

He was forever haunted by the memory of a young chorister at St Albans who disappeared from Chubb’s life just as he had summoned up the courage to speak to him. Similarly, a brief sexual relationship with another boy when Ralph was 19 seemed to serve as a template for future visions of paradise. Chubb’s books become progressively more self-involved and paranoid. Seeking to articulate his pederastic desires, he created a personal mythology which explained everything in terms only he could understand. Nonetheless, Chubb’s work is of fascinating psychological significance; each of the various angels, knights, seers, and boy-gods in his dream world represents an aspect of his introspective and persecuted self.

Ernst Herter

Ernst Herter, “Dying Achilles”, Marble,  1884, Achilleion Palace, Corfu, Greece

Ernst Gustav Herter (1846 -1917) was a famous German sculptor who worked in Berlin. He specialized in creating statues of mythological figures. Among his most famous works is “Sterbender Achill (Dying Achilles)”, created in Berlin in 1884. The statue was acquired by the Empress of Austria and became the centerpiece at her palace Achilleion in Corfu, Greece.

Laurence Rasti, “There Are No Homosexuals in Iran”

Laurence Rasti, “There Are No Homosexuals in Iran”, 2018, Edition patrick Frey, Bilingual Edition

While most Western nations now officially accept homosexuality, in Iran it is still punishable by death. The only options for a homosexual in Iran are to choose transsexuality, which is tolerated by law, or to flee. The subjects this elegant hardcover photo book by Iranian photographer Laurence Rasti, born in 1990 in Geneva,  live in the small Turkish town of Denizli, where hundreds of gay Iranians are waiting to move to a tolerant country.

Rasti explores concepts of beauty, identity and gender in her spare and evocative images set in landscapes, mundane settings and street scenes, creating a new language of camouflage and discretion. Underlining the contrast between conspicuousness and obscurity, Rasti’s couples hide behind eye-catching props such as balloons or flowers or are glimpsed behind trees or bushes. She hides her subjects in plain sight, referencing the experience of these individuals who do not exist in Iran.

Laurence Rasti was the Aperture Portfolio Award Finalist and Magnum Photo Award Juror s Pick for 2016. The book is availabe through Amazon.