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.
Renaissance
“To a very strange lizard, found by the gardener of the Belvedere, he [Leonardo] fastened some wings with a mixture of quicksilver made from scales scraped from other lizards, which quivered as it moved by crawling about. After he had fashioned eyes, a horn, and a beard for it, he tamed the lizard and kept it in a box, and all the friends to whom he showed it fled in terror.”
-Girogio Vasari, The Life of Leonard da Vinci, The Lives of the Artists
Sculptures by Jaehyo Lee
Since graduating in 1992 with a BFA from the Hong-Ik University Jaehyo Lee (1965, Hapchen, Korea) has gained acclaim both in his native Korea and internationally for his distinct yet intimately crafted oeuvre. Combining distinct traces of Land Art, Arte Povera and Minimalism Lee´s works cast a questioning eye over the roots of form, its function and its role within the natural world.
Works in Wood and Steel by Robby Cuthbert
“I ended up attending Williams College where I majored in Studio Art and Psychology. Within the art department, I was naturally drawn to the three-dimensional media of architecture and sculpture. What ensued was a sort of cross-pollination between the two media that led me to my current style and process.
Process is central to my work. Each project begins with a period of sketching followed by careful phases of planning, calculation and construction. While this process reflects my architectural interests, the forms I generate need not adhere to the rules of architecture. In this way, I employ a controlled method as a means of generating and exploring a variety of three-dimensional forms.
In my most recent work I generate architectural and organic forms, often with a hint of the fantastical or whimsical, that examine the role of tension in the storing and release of energy. With wood and wire as my primary materials, I have played with the suggestion of pent up energy held in check by opposing forces. Each piece maintains a state of potential energy that, if released, would result in a transformation of the work.” – Robby Cuthbert
Sculptures by Lee Bontecou
Lee Bontecou is best known for the sculptures she created in 1959 and the 1960s, which challenged artistic conventions of both materials and presentation by hanging on the wall like a painting. They consist of welded steel frames covered with recycled canvas (such as conveyor belts or mail sacks) and other found objects.
Bontecou’s best constructions are at once mechanistic and organic, abstract but evocative of the brutality of war. Art critic Arthur Danto describes them as “fierce”, reminiscent of 17th-century scientist Robert Hooke’s “Micrographia”, lying “at the intersection of magnified insects, battle masks, and armored chariots…”.
Bontecou exhibited at Leo Castelli’s art gallery in the 1960s. One of the largest examples of her work is located in the lobby of the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, which was commissioned by the architect Philip Johnson.
From the 1970s until 1991 Lee Bontecou taught at Brooklyn College. She retired from the art world to Orbisonia, Pennsylvania. After decades of obscurity, she was brought back to public attention by a 2003 retrospective co-organized by the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, that traveled to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2004.
The retrospective included both work from Bontecou’s public art-world career and an extensive display of work done after retreating from the public view. Bontecou’s work was also included in the Carnegie International 2004-5 exhibit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2010, the Museum of Modern Art presented a retrospective of Bontecou’s work entitled All Freedom in Every Sense.
Sculptures and Furniture by Jaehyo Lee
Korean artist Jaehyo Lee creates sculptures and furniture pieces from metal and chopped wood. Yhese elements are bound together in such a way that the often-times linear building components become curved semi-geometric works of art.
Each piece crafted by Jaehyo Lee is both an engaging shape within a given space while also existing as an object with an inherently domestic purpose. The artist’s most recent exhibition, ‘Transformations’, is comprised of a series of useful art objects through which the artist has continued to actualize his exploration of the materiality of his chosen media.