Queer Contemporary Art

Catherine Opie Miggi & Ilene, Los Angeles,...

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 15:00:50 -0500

Catherine Opie

Miggi & Ilene, Los Angeles, California
1995
Chromogenic print

possibilitiesof: Melanie, & Sadie Rain, New York, New...

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:00:59 -0500

possibilitiesof:

Melanie, & Sadie Rain, New York, New York

Catherine Opie

1998

Catherine Opie Norma & Eyenga Minneapolis Minnesota (from...

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 10:00:52 -0500

Catherine Opie

Norma & Eyenga

Minneapolis Minnesota (from the Domestic Series)

1998

Catherine Opie Melissa & Lake, Durham North Carolina (from...

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 09:00:59 -0500

Catherine Opie

Melissa & Lake,

Durham North Carolina (from the Domestic series),

1998. Chromogenic print

In 1998, Opie traveled cross-country in her motor home for two months in order to photograph lesbian couples. This series, called Domestic—of which Melissa & Lake, Durham, North Carolina is an example—presents these couples involved in everyday, household activities: relaxing in their backyard, hanging out in their kitchen, playing with their children. There is no sensationalism here. Much like the formal studio portraits before them, these intimate photographs speak both to Opie’s identification with her subjects and to the overwhelming absence of such images in mainstream representations.

Guglielmo Plüschow Nudo Femminile Su (1852-1930)

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 15:00:56 -0500

Guglielmo Plüschow

Nudo Femminile Su

(1852-1930)

Guglielmo Plüschow

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 13:01:04 -0500

Guglielmo Plüschow

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 11:00:46 -0500

Guglielmo Plüschow

Guglielmo Plüschow Italy, circa 1900. FLASHBACK FRIDAY! every...

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:00:42 -0500

Guglielmo Plüschow

Italy, circa 1900.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY! every Friday we take a break from contemporary art to bring you some queer art from the past.

This weeks installment:

Guglielmo Plüschow (born Wilhelm Plüschow; August 18, 1852 – January 3, 1930), was A German photographer who moved to Italy and became known for his nude photos of local youths, predominantly males (but also females). Being the cousin of Wilhelm von Gloeden, who, despite taking up nude photography later than Plüschow, soon overshadowed him, Plüschow was several times at odds with the law and charged with corruption of minors. Today, his photography is recognized for its artistic merits, even though it is generally considered somewhat inferior to von Gloeden’s on account of his less graceful handling of lighting and the sometimes strangely stilted poses of his models.

paddyjohnson: Glenn Ligon’s “One Black Day” is part of his Neon...

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 17:22:31 -0400

paddyjohnson:

Glenn Ligon’s “One Black Day” is part of his Neon show at Luhring Augustine right now. It will only be turned on election day of this year. Of the piece Ligon says, “Well, it’s a pun.”

rawarchives: Holly Hughes “Sins of Omission” June 18, 19 &...

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 16:59:38 -0400

front cover

back cover

inside

rawarchives:

Holly Hughes

“Sins of Omission”

June 18, 19 & 20, 1993

Holly HughesAfter A Fashion

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 14:26:17 -0400

Holly Hughes
After A Fashion

Holly HughesDress Suits to Hire“In DRESS SUITS TO HIRE, a...

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:49:00 -0400

Holly Hughes
Dress Suits to Hire

“In DRESS SUITS TO HIRE, a heady mixture of erotic fantasy and hard-boiled pulp drama, two “sisters” who live in a rental clothing shop use the merchandise to try on various facets of their personalities. Created by Holly Hughes, Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver, DRESS SUITS TO HIRE is a haunting and hilarious look into a room where one woman embodies a dark and predatory sexuality while the other one struggling against lesbian desires and her autonomous and abusive right hand. DRESS SUITS TO HIRE, which won OBIE Awards for both Shaw and Hughes (Shaw for her performance in the original 1987 production and a special citation for Hughes for the 1993 revival), is a mellifluous ode to lesbian eros and a joyful, literate send-up of all romantic fantasy.” - LAMAMA

“Ladies” are the kind of people who won’t let my girlfriend use...

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:00:27 -0400

“Ladies” are the kind of people who won’t let my girlfriend use the public ladies’ room, thinking she’s not a woman. Oh, but they’re not going to let her use the men’s room either - they’re not going to let her be a man either. If she’s not a man, and she’s not a woman, then what is she? Once I asked my mother what fire was: a solid, a liquid, or a gas? And she said it wasn’t any one of those things - it was something that happened to things: a force of nature, she called it.

Maybe that’s what she is: a force of nature. For sure she is something that happened to me.

-Holly Hughes, Clit Notes, 1993

Holly Hughes How would you describe your work?Holly Hughes: I...

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:46:09 -0400

Holly Hughes

How would you describe your work?
Holly Hughes: I would describe it [as] based on personal experience, a new and improved autobiography. Because why would someone just tell their life story without improving on it in some way? I think that’s just lazy, or as Tim Miller, who is also performing, says, ‘Everything you’re about to see tonight is true and some of it actually happened.’ So, it’s kind of a blend of personal experience, political satire, rant, and my poetic license. It’s coming from a lefty, lesbian perspective.

Excerpt from her interview with Union Weekly

Robert Rauschenberg Winter Pool, 1959Combine painting: oil,...

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:41:07 -0400

Robert Rauschenberg
Winter Pool, 1959
Combine painting: oil, paper, fabric, wood, metal, sandpaper, tape, printed paper, printed reproductions, handheld bellows, and found painting, on two canvases, with ladder

Photo

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 13:47:35 -0400

segundasculturais: THE ERASED de KOONING Not long before he...

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 12:48:18 -0400

segundasculturais:

THE ERASED de KOONING

Not long before he died, Robert Rauschenberg told the story of the Erased de Kooning Drawing in this BBC video. He’s a good storyteller. When he finished his erasure, some folks accused him of vandalizing a de Kooning, saying he destroyed art. It wasn’t vandalism, he tells the interviewer. Then what was it? “Poetry,” he says.

taxidermy-in-art: Robert Rauschenberg, Inlet, 1959, Combine,...

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 11:50:45 -0400

taxidermy-in-art:

Robert Rauschenberg, Inlet, 1959, Combine, oil, newspaper, paper, wood, metal, fabric, pant leg, postcard, zipper, wire hanger, paper clip, can lids, stuffed bird,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to one of our favorites!Robert...

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 10:43:23 -0400

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to one of our favorites!
Robert Rauschenberg

“Born in Port Arthur, Texas in 1925, Robert Rauschenberg imagined himself first as a minister and later as a pharmacist. It wasn’t until 1947, while in the U.S. Marines that he discovered his aptitude for drawing and his interest in the artistic representation of everyday objects and people. After leaving the Marines he studied art in Paris on the G.I. Bill, but quickly became disenchanted with the European art scene. After less than a year he moved to North Carolina, where the country’s most visionary artists and thinkers, such as Joseph Albers and Buckminster Fuller, were teaching at Black Mountain College. There, with artists such as dancer Merce Cunningham and musician John Cage, Rauschenberg began what was to be an artistic revolution. Soon, North Carolina country life began to seem small and he left for New York to make it as a painter. There, amidst the chaos and excitement of city life Rauschenberg realized the full extent of what he could bring to painting.” - PBS

museumuesum: Robert GoberUntitled beeswax, pigment and human...

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 16:54:57 -0400

museumuesum:

Robert Gober
Untitled
beeswax, pigment and human hair
23¾ x 17½ x 11¼ in. (60.4 x 44.5 x 28.5 cm.)
Executed in 1990. This work is unique.