A fine art, film, history and literature site oriented to, but not exclusively for, the gay community. Please be aware that there is mature content on this blog. Information on images and links to sources will be provided if known. Enjoy your visit and please subscribe.
Ai Weiwei, “He Xie (River Crab)”, 2010, Porcelain
The installation “He Xie” consists of 3,200 porcelain crab sculptures. They were created after Chinese authorities ransacked and destroyed Weiwei’s studio in 2010. Following that event, a feast of real river crabs was hosted by Weiwei, who was unable to attend, due to his house arrest. The term “He Xie” is a homophone for “harmonious” in Chinese and has also become a term for internet censorship.
Saturnino Herrán, Illustration for Pegaso Magazine, 1917
Saturnino Herrán Guinchard, a Mexican painter, began studying drawing and painting with José Inés Tovilla and Severo Amador. He later studied with teachers Julio Ruelas, Fabrés Antonio Catalan, Leandro Izaguirre and Germán Gedovious.
Guinchard’s work is mainly inspired by pre-Columbian Mexico with its folk customsand the lifestyles of its people. His figures have been associated with the traditions of Spanish art, particularly Catalan Modernism, along with the work of Velázquez and José de Rivera. The works of Saturnino Herran includes the paintings: “Labor and Work”, “Mill and Marketers”, and “Legend of the Volcanos”. Guinchard also painted the “Creole” Series and the triptych “Our Ancient Gods”, which includes the image above.
Photographer Unknown, (The Shrine), Location Unknown
Martin Copertari, “As Lovers Went By”, 2013, Lithograph Composed of Collage of Etchings with Gouache, Dimensions Unknown
A Briton who lived in Barcelona, Martin Copertari made collages using images from the Victorian era. He often used a gravure printing technique, which he did by hand. The collages are all hand made with original etchings from 19th century publications, lithographic prints from the early 20th century and retouched with gouache.
Reblogged with many thanks to https://artqueer.tumblr.com
Photographer Unknown, Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance Parade, Hong Kong
Nahum B. Zenil, “Angel-Demonio”, 1991, Oil and Ink on Heavy Paper, 72 x 52 cm.
Nahum B. Zenil is a Mexican artist who often uses his own self-portrait as the principal model for a cultural critical interpretation of Mexico, especially concerning homosexuality and mestization. His art is often compared to that of Frida Kahlo, in which the self becomes the principal object of their paintings letting the viewer discover the artists as individualsas well as the broader social and cutural aspects of their work.
Born in the state of Veracruz, Zenil enrolled in 1959 at the Escuela nacional de Maestros in Mexico City from which he graduated in 1964. He later entered the Escula Nacional de Pinture y Escultura in 1966. Zenil is one of the founding members of the Serman Cultural Gay Festival which occurs yearly at the Museum of the University of Chopo.
Sigmar Polke, “Kandinsdingsda”, 1976, Gouache, Acrylic and Collage on Paper Mounted on Canvas, Artist’s Estate
Sigmar Polke was born in Oels, an east German region, in 1941. His family soon fled to west Germany in 1953, settling in Dusseldorf where Polke studied at the Dusseldorf Art Academy between the years 1961 and 1967. While still in school, Polke, along with Gerhard Richter and Konrad Fischer, founded the Captialist Realism movement.
The Capitalist Realism movement incorporated aspects of American Pop Art’s interest in consumer and popular imagery with abstraction and an emphasis on a progressive use of mediums. The movement also instilled into their works satirical commentary about consumerism, the political climate in Germany at the time: the movement’s name was a play on the Russian art movement of Socialist Realism.
Polke’s artistic practice embraced and incorporated mistakes such as drips, tears, and copy printing errors into his paintings. His experimentation with photography in the 1970s intentionally disregarded the standard rules: dropping the wrong chemicals onto the paper, turning on the light during development, brushing the developer on selectively, using exhausted fixer. Polke would then use these ‘mistakes’ to explore his interest in abstract pictorial space.
Polke’s irreverence for classical artistic practices made for an innovative and stylistically uncategorizable body of work that used photography and printed materials as source material, silkscreened layers on top of painterly expanses, chemical substances and other non-art materials within a collage-like aesthetic.
Giovanni Gasparro, La Visione di San Giovanni a Patmos”, 2012, Oil on Canvas, 325 x 180 cm.
Giovanni Gasparro was born in Bari in southern Italy in 1983. He graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 2007, as a pupil of the painter Giuseppe Modica, with a thesis in art history on the Roman stay of Van Dyck. Gasparro’s first solo exhibition in Paris was in 2009.
In 2011, the Arcidiocesis of L’Aquila commissioned him to paint nineteen works of art between the altar and the altarpiece for the Basilica of San Giuseppe Artigiano, which was damaged by the earthquake of 2009. This collection of works constitutes the largest painting cycle of sacred art made in recent years.
In 2012 Gasparro made the “Anomalia with the Largillière’s Hat” for the Costa Fascinosa, Europe’s largest cruise ship, in the Costa Crociere fleet. In 2013 he won the Bioethics Art Competition of UNESCO’s Bioethics and Human Rights Chair with his work “Casti Connubii”, inspired by Pope Pius XI’s 1930 encyclical. The following year, with “Quum Memoranda”, a portrait of Pope Pius VII, Gasparro won the Pio Alferano Prize.
Reblogged with many thanks to https://milkyger.tumblr.com
Volodymyr Tsisaryk, “Jason and the Golden Fleece”, 2016, Bronze, 58 x 24 x 16 centimeters, Boccara Art Gallery, New York
Volodymyr Tsisaryk is a sculptor from Lviv, Ukraine, who received his Bachelor Degree in Fine Arts at the Lviv State College of Decorative Art in 1999 and his Masters in Fine Art from the Lviv Academy of Arts in 2001.
Computer Graphics and 3D Modeling by Visionary artist Keerych Luminokaya
Tope Image: “Spirit of Fusion”, 2009
Bottom Image: “Universal Form”, 2018
Reblogged with thanks to the artist’s site: http://luminokaya.com
Max Ackermann, “Three Red Signals”, 1968, Oil on Canvas
“Three Red Signals’ by Max Ackermann was exhibited at his solo retrospective show in 1969 at the University of Chicago.
Shepard Fairey, “Obey Lotus Crescent”, Date Unknown, Limited Edition of 75
Shepard Fairey is an American contemporary street artist, graphic designer, illustrator and founder of OBEY Clothing wh emerged from the skateboarding scene. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1982 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration.
Sebastiano Ricci, “Bacchanal”, Date Unknown, Oil on Canvas, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Sebastiano Ricci was an Italian painter of the late Baroque School of Venice, An elder contemporary of Tiepolo, Ricci represents a late version of the vigorous and luminous Cortonesque style of grand manner fresco painting. He painted many works while under the patronage of Duke Ranuccio II, Farnes of Parma, Italy.
John Singer Sargent, “Sketch for Perseus on Pegasus Slaying Medusa”, 1922-1924, Oil and Graphite on Canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
In one version of the birth of Pegasus, the flying horse, it states the horse was miraculously formed when the blood of Medusa’s severed head poured onto the foaming sea, and out of this foam it came. Another version said the horse came out of the slain body of Medusa and upon the horse was a warrior called Chrysaor, born carrying a golden sword. The Pegasus story states that Perseus gave the head of Medusa to the goddess Athena in gratitude for her help and in reprisal for what Medusa had done to Athena’s temple.
In Sargent’s depiction, he seems to combine the elements of the entire story: the slaying of Medusa, the birth of Pegasus, and the presenting of Medusa’s head to Athena all in one. He also, very cleverly, has kept faithful to the constellation of Pegasus, the stars in the sky aligned correctly to the position of Pegasus in his sketch.
Craig Larotonda, “The Blessing”, Date Unknown, Acrylic on Panel, 8 x 11 Inches, Private Collection
Craig LaRotonda is a painter, sculptor, and illustrator who was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. A graduate of the University of Buffalo, Craig received his BFA while studying with world-renowned illustrator Alan Cober. He is now a very present part of Buffalo, New York’s artistic communities, as gallery-owner of the 1995 founded Revelation Studios and the 2016 founded Revolution Gallery, frequent exhibitor, and participant in regional art festivals.
LaRotonda’s personal art is heavily inspired by the nature of consciousness and the struggles of humanity. His provocative and richly layered paintings incorporate mixed media and aging techniques, ultimately creating surreal figurative works with a dark narrative and a grotesque elegance. His distorted creatures are subjects captured in a timeless space; surviving the brutality and beauty of existence.
LaRotonda’s work in sculpture follows a similar trend. The construction of the sculptures is reminiscent of an old Italian technique incorporating earth clay for the original design, and then casting the work in gypsum, paper, and glue, he then adds found objects to it, such as bones and other materials that are a mix of old and new.