GAYLETTER

Nathan Rapport creates beautiful and erotic scenes using colors that are as queer as his subjects. I mean, it’s not everyday that you get to see multicolored pubes. Beginning on Friday, August 19th, you’ll be able to catch Rapport’s artwork on view at the store, Adam’s Nest in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The show is titled “I Won’t Decorate My Love,” and Nathan himself will be at the opening night reception.

A multitalented artist who splits his time between Texas and California, Rapport gained national notoriety with his queer adult coloring book, “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me.” The coloring book, along with shirts designed by Nathan, can all be found in the Adam’s Nest online store. The t-shirts feature designs such as “Blousy Top,” “Butt Pirate” and a dude with a dick stuffed in his mouth captioned, “Enjoy the Silence.”

 
The show coincides with Carnival week, one of the biggest outdoor celebrations in Massachusetts. The Provincetown Carnival attracts a crowd of over 90,000 people all coming together to celebrate queerness. Going along with this year’s Carnival theme of “Back to the ‘80s,” Adam’s Nest is also selling Gran Fury’s Act Up t-shirts, with a portion of the profits going to support the Ali Forney Center.

Adam’s Nest opened up in June of this year and proudly features art, apparel and everything in between. In their own words, “We believe in love, equality, and to live by the ‘golden rule.’ …

James Unsworth’s art is very dark, and sexy and fucked up in the best possible ways. Known for exploring “the subjects of sex, death, food and grand faggotory” in his work, the London based artist, has acquired fans far and wide. This Saturday, August 20, at Printed Matter Inc.

Unsworth will debut his first U.S. solo exhibition titled ‘N.S.F.L.’ It “will include original drawings from Unsworth’s first two publications; Ninja Turtle Sex Museum and Dead Boys alongside sketches, reference material, prints and ephemera relating to these drawings.”

Apparently James will be onsite to sign copies of both publications. We chatted with Printed Matter’s Shannon Michael Caine about the show and he told us that there are also “over a 100 original drawings for sale and riso editioned prints start at $20.” He also mentioned that there will be “beer and boys.” He knows us too well. We’re looking forward to it.

Free, 5:00-7:00pm, Printed Matter, 231 11th Ave. New York, NY. …

It may come as a shock for you to learn that the Olympics are going on right now in Rio de Janeiro. Or that I just had to google the proper spelling of “Janeiro.” While Olympic coverage is everywhere we look, what’s presented is mostly the shiny, hand-holding Olympics that we’re taught to believe in as children. When mainstream news outlets cover more controversial stories, they’re almost always about environmental issues. These stories are obviously important but are only given airtime because they affect foreign athletes. Stories about less significant people (read: poor) are much harder to come by and artist Marc Ohrem-Leclef is doing what he can to change that.

With his project ‘Olympic Favela,’ Ohrem-Leclef documents how the residents of 14 Rio favelas (Brazilian urban slums) have been affected by both the Olympic games and the World Cup. Forced from their homes in order to entertain the rest of the world, Marc captures the struggle and perseverance of these brave displaced families through both photo and video. While his work has already been internationally recognized, it’s on view for the first time in New York at the BAXTER ST Gallery as part of the 2016 Annual Juried Exhibition.

The show, curated by Mickalene Thomas, will be having an opening reception tomorrow that features a screening of the Olympic Favela accompanying film. The documentary centers around two families from Favela Vila Autodromo who are relocated and end up having to deal with two very different fates. …

Since its debut at the Tacoma Art Museum in October of 2015, Art AIDS America, curated by Jonathan David Katz and Rock Hushka, has been met with enormous controversy. This backlash comes from the fact that the show, which showcases art that came out of the AIDS epidemic, features hardly any work from black artists. This is troubling, especially when you consider that while black people represent approximately 12% of the U.S. population, in 2010, they made up about 44% of new HIV infections. Right now in America, gay and bisexual black men, as well as trans women, are most at risk for HIV/AIDS.

To their credit, the curators of Art AIDS America have taken the criticism of white-washing seriously — as each future iteration of the show seemingly becomes more and more aware of race. At the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the show is designed so that this elephant in the room is one of the first things you see when entering the exhibit. “Tongues Untied” by Marlon Riggs is projected in the entryway to the main part of the exhibit. Riggs’ film — about the black gay community — is one of the first pieces to draw your attention, and it is a telling choice by the Bronx Museum of the Arts to screen it at the start. Understandably, they’d like to show it off. The film is compelling—filled with men reciting provocative, erotic poetry, and confronting the camera with an intensity found also in the footage Riggs uses of parades and lovemaking. …

I met the artist Sean O’connor out and about when I was going to FIT in Manhattan and used to party 6 days a week (I think Monday was my day off). Basically I met him drunk. I think he was straight at that time or pretending, or just trying to do bro-masc, I was too drunk to remember the details.

Years later I saw him again and he told me he was working on some art and because GAYLETTER is always interested in what’s new, I asked him to share some of his work with me. After we saw the work, we got really into it. Which is why we want to tell you about his first solo exhibition in NYC, which features large paintings, works on paper, as well as “edition prints that depict vast and intricate floral patterns, paired with muscular men and athletes, snakes and reptiles, and classical icons of beauty.”

His work is “rooted in traditional decorative art practices such as “Toile de Jouy,” and printed textiles, and he repurposes these mediums to portray a contemporary look and examination of idealized male beauty in gay culture. The imagery in his work references historic and artistic symbols of masculine beauty ranging from ancient Athenian vases, to mid-century male pin ups and athletes, to current prevailing notions of manhood.  His work searches for the humor within the ‘homo-bromo’ social-media fixated culture, and also explores when appreciation for beauty and aesthetic morphs into vanity and narcissism.” It’s super sexy. …

A “person of interest” usually refers to a suspect who has been deemed worthy of further investigation. In Sam Gordon’s exhibition ‘Persons of Interest,’ nineteen artists collectively investigate the queer individual through drawing, video and even a neon glory hole (my personal favorite). Sam refers to the exhibition as a “wunderkammer, a microcosm of books and objects presented without categorical hierarchies.” The exhibition itself strives to be as queer as the art it presents. Unlike most art spaces, there is no pecking order. Here all mediums are created equal.

The show is presented by Visual AIDS at the Bureau of General Services — Queer Division, located the second floor of the LGBT Center of New York. The Bureau is a “queer cultural center, bookstore, and event space…that seeks to excite and educate a self-confident, sex-positive, and supportive queer community by offering books, publications, and art and by hosting readings, performances, film screenings, book discussion groups, and workshops.” Most importantly, you can find every issue of GAYLETTER there.

Sam explains that the show also explores “the people left behind and the challenges with archives and legacies.” After the AIDS epidemic, exhibiting art was no longer a simple matter of organizing and categorizing. Huge gaps were left both in the canon and in the community. ‘Persons of Interest’ tries to symbolically rectify that loss, while paying homage to those who have passed. Featuring artists such as Raynes Birkbeck, Mark Carter, Chloe Dzubilo and more, the show is on view through September 4th. …

For those who have ever visited the gay mecca known as Fire Island Pines, it may come as a surprise to learn that even after the Stonewall Riots the community was fairly conservative. In 1976, Teri Warren was visiting from the more queer-friendly neighborhood of Cherry Grove and dressed fabulously in drag. He was promptly denied entrance to a restaurant on account of his appearance. In protest, a group of drag queens decided to come back on July 4th and “invade” the town. Thus, the Invasion of the Pines was born.

Every year on July 4th, an ever-larger group of drag queens hop on a water taxi and invade the Pines. Photographer Susan Kravitz has for many years been there to document the event. Kravitz considers herself a “social documentarian of daily life.” She first visited Cherry Grove as a straight married woman, and then returned a couple of years later as a lesbian with her camera in tow. Kravitz has worked as a photographer for over thirty years, exhibiting her photos in galleries all around the world. Mascara, Mirth & Mayhem: Independence Day on Fire Island is her first book.

The book spans the course of four decades, intermingling photos of different eras to create the effect that every year’s invasion actually took place on the same eternally long day. The political backdrops of the photos change, every decade presenting unique tragedies and triumphs, but the magnificent queens remain the same.

The photos themselves are as majestic as the royalty they capture. …

I discovered the 22 year old artist Daniel Marin Medina on Instagram months ago, we chatted online, then he drew me. After that we stayed in touch and I asked him to do a drawing for the last printed issue of GAYLETTER. I am so happy for him that he’s having his first solo show in NYC titled ‘Journal Entries’ which is opening this week, July 8th. “The process of drawing these became similar to writing in a journal. Something would happen and I’d jot down my thoughts in the form of a drawing. They’re coded passages in a diary, which is kind of fun to think about. Along with these drawings, I will be showing figure drawings done of some of the most interesting people in my life.” We had the chance to chat with Daniel about this show and other fun stuff.

Why is the show called Journal Entries? The process of drawing these became similar to writing in a journal. Something would happen and I’d jot down my thoughts in the form of a drawing. They’re coded passages in a diary, which is kind of fun to think about.

How did this show came about? A friend reached out, said she liked what I was doing, and offered me the space. The universe at work!

When did you start drawing? I like to joke that I’ve been drawing since before I was born, having done Lascaux-style cave paintings in my mother, but no one really finds that as fun as I do. …