James Bidgood, Pan, 1965, C-print, 22 x 22 in. Courtesy of ClampArt.
Thursday 10.30.14
Classical Nudes and The Making of Queer History
Touted as the most ambitious exhibition ever presented by the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art — Classical Nudes and The Making of Queer History attempts to “trace the same sex gaze as grounded in classical form from Antiquity to the modern day.” Now that’s a lot of ground to cover. To make things more digestible, the curator Jonathan David Katz has divided the show into four distinct periods following a chronological order from Antiquity to the Renaissance on to the 18th and 19th Centuries and finally exploring Modern times. There are nearly 100 objects of sculpture, painting, drawing photography and video by artists that include James Bidgood, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Paul Cadmus, F. Holland Day, Jim French, Jean Jacques Pradier, William von Gloeden, Nan Goldin, Robert Mapplethorpe and Lyle Ashton Harris, just to name a few. I must say the homoerotic energy is pervasive — at times blatant and other times more subtle, it almost made me want to shout “We’re Here, We’re Queer and We’re NOT going shopping!” (an old Act Up slogan from a march on 5th Avenue protesting the Catholic church). Seriously this monumental show just made me prideful, go have a look, it’s up until Jan 4th.
