Author | Annie Malamet
The Longwood Art Gallery at Hostos Community College in the Bronx is currently hosting an exhibit titled Gay, which “examines the cultural shift that has taken place in identity during the last decade by looking at the cultural production of gay male artists of color from 2003-2013.” Curated by Ivan Monforte and featuring the work of twenty separate artists, Gay covers a range of mediums and experiences in exploring its stated theme.
Entering the space, visitors are greeted with a large (93 x 95” to be exact) photograph titled Playboy by Jose Joaqin Figueroa depicting a nude, hairy man splayed out on red satin sheets in a typical pin-up pose (featured). The photograph is a smart choice as the first piece that visitors see since it immediately reminds us of the theme the exhibition endeavors to explore.
The next piece that caught my attention was one by Lucas Michael. In a light box, Michael has placed hand drawn book title pages from 1958 through 1995 that boast such titles as Homosexuality: It’s Causes and Cure and Male Homosexuals: Their Problems and Adaptations. Michael’s piece is poignant and witty; one is reminded of how far the culture has come in terms of acceptance, and yet at the same time, the piece points out how much further we can and should go.
My favorite work at the show was Jacolby Satterwhite’s bizarre video loop, Lactate. The video features, among other scenes, two, muddied, masked figures in a forest, dancing and spraying digitally rendered fluid from bra-like contraptions on their chests. I recognized the clunky, digital, pre-2004 aesthetic from a video in Charlie White’s collaborative series Music for Sleeping Children directed by Satterwhite. Satterwhite’s piece in Gay is equal parts funny and unsettling and his style reminded me instantly of a more self-aware Wendy Vainity.
Other highlights from the exhibit include Troy Michie’s mixed media sculpture, Beware, My Body, My Soul, which recalls Ellen Gallagher’s mixed media collages and drawings. Cacy Forgenie’s photographs treats the culture of gay black men with both respect and humor. A series of paintings by Steve Locke uses minimalist composition and muted colors to depict the preludes to clandestine sexual encounters between men in public bathrooms and locker rooms. The idea of such an “indecent” subject matter being elevated to the status of painting is an interesting and complex one and one that complicates the history and tradition of fine art.
Many of the works seem to examine personal anxieties caused by the culture at large, such as Carlo Quispe’s ink drawings of various Health Centers around the boroughs. Exteriors loom menacingly while young men sit nervously in clinical waiting rooms. The uninviting nature of a medical setting is accurately captures by Quispe’s cartoon-style.
The last pieces I was struck by were Hector Silva’s explicit pencil drawings. Erotic images of muscled Latino men populate Silva’s visual language. I’m not completely sure of or convinced by these drawings, but I remembered them vividly when I left the gallery and for this I must give Silva credit. They certainly fit perfectly within the exhibit and punctuate the show with an eroticism and humor that dominates throughout.
Gay opened on February 5th and runs through May 7th at The Longwood Art Gallery at Hostos Community College in the Bronx, 450 Grand Concourse at 149th street.
