Baseline Co. Ltd
61A-63A Vo Van Tan Street
4th Floor
District 3, Ho Chi Minh City
Vietnam
© Confidential Concepts, worldwide, USA
© Parkstone Press International, New York, USA
Image-Bar www.image-bar.com
© Berenice Abbott
© Ajamu Ikwe Tyekimba
© Francis Bacon Estate, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA/ DACS, London
© Richmond Barthé, courtesy Childs Gallery
© Mme G. Brassaï
© Romaine Brooks
© Bruce of Los Angeles
© Cahun
© Centro Elisarion
© Tee Corinne
© Jean Delville Estate, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA/ SABAM, Brussels
© Charles Demuth
© Marcel Duchamp Estate, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA/ ADAGP, Paris/ Succession Marcel Duchamp
© Rotimi Fani-Kayode/Autograph, Association of Black Photographers
© Leonor Fini Estate, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA/ ADAGP, Paris
© Wilhelm von Gloeden
© Nan Goldin
© Duncan Grant, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA/ DACS, London
© Sunil Gupta
© George Hare
© David Hockney
© Holland Day
Art © Harmony Hammond/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
© Mardsen Hartley, Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
© Elisar von Kupffer
© Tamara de Lempicka Estate, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA/ ADAGP, Paris
© Herbert List/ Magnum photos
© Jeanne-Mammen-Gesellschaft e.V.
© Estate Man Ray, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA/ ADAGP, Paris
© Copyright The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Courtesy Art + Commerce
© Pierre Molinier Estate, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA/ ADAGP, Paris
© Catherine Opie. Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles
© Georg Pauli, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA/ BUS, Stockholm
© Estate of Pablo Picasso, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA
© Kuzma Petrov-Vodkine
© Pierre et Gilles. Courtesy Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont, Paris
© George Platt Lynes
© Wilhelm von Plüschow
Art © George and Helen Segal Foundation / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
© Smithsonian American Art Museum
© Frank Meadow Sutcliffe/ The Sutcliffe Gallery
Tom of Finland 1979 © Tom of Finland Foundation 2008 www.TomofFinlandFoundation.org
Tom of Finland 1986 © Tom of Finland Foundation 2008 www.TomofFinlandFoundation.org
© Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA
© Minor White
© David Wojnarowicz/P.P.O.W., New York
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or adapted without the permission of the copyright holder, throughout the world. Unless otherwise specified, copyright on the works reproduced lies with the respective photographers. Despite intensive research, it has not always been possible to establish copyright ownership. Where this is the case, we would appreciate notification.
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Musicians (detail), c. 1595.
Oil on canvas, 92.1 × 118.4 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
01. Greek painting representing a couple, 480 BC. Museum of Paestum, Italy.
Introduction
Art and homosexuality may seem like a strange combination, but both phenomena have been part of human history from the beginning of time, or at least from the beginning of recorded civilisation. Bringing together two large concepts – art and homosexuality – is nevertheless difficult and challenging. Both categories raise a host of conceptual problems and pose a series of unresolved nagging questions.
The primary question, “What is art and what purpose does it serve?”, has preoccupied humankind for centuries and has yet to find a definitive answer. There exists as many views and definitions about what art is (and is not) and its significance as there are individuals in the world. In the context of Gay Art, I am using the term “art” in a broad sense as human creation and communication within a visual field. Although the majority of the images here were produced in traditional media such as painting, sculpture, graphics, and photography, art would also include images and forms of production associated with, for example, popular culture, advertising, film, performance, conceptualism, or computer-generated imagery. Ultimately, it is up to the reader of this book to decide what to accept or reject as art.
Unlike “art,” the other term in this book’s title, “homosexuality,” can be defined more specifically. Homosexuality and its emotional aspects have existed in all cultures and in all time periods long before the invention of the term. It is and always has been one aspect of the very complex domain of human sexuality. The way homosexual love and sensibilities are visually expressed is often a reflection of the status of homosexuals themselves within their particular cultures. These images are an indication of either the degree of tolerance in those societies, or the sign of an increasingly restrictive prejudice fostered by traditions and religion.
Before 1869, the words “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” did not exist. The former was coined and first put into use by the German-Hungarian writer and translator Karl Maria Kertbeny (1824–82). He also invented the latter term in 1880. Kertbeny’s purpose for using the word “homosexuality” was in response to an article of the Prussian penal code that criminalised sexual relations between men. Kertbeny wanted the article omitted,
