Florence in the Time of Leonardo
Phil Melanson keeps Florenzer engaging by setting this novel about Leonardo da Vinci amid a power struggle between the Pope and the Medici family of Florence.
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Art as Activism in the Plague Years
Curated and published by the private Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand in Brazil in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name, Gran Fury: Art Is Not Enough is a tribute to and compilation of the works of Gran Fury, the artistic collective that was formed in the 1980s adjacent to the activist group ACT UP.
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A Collector of Artists and Artifacts
I FIRST LEARNED of Max Ewing while researching gay photographer George Platt Lynes. Ewing makes several appearances in the Lynes narrative, both as a young man who moved alongside Lynes in New York’s bohemian circles and as a fellow artist. Ewing used portrait photos to create his own pantheon of artists, movie stars, personalities, and handsome young men—actors, dancers, bodybuilders, and models who caught his eye.
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Art and Sexual Liberation
Desire as Praxis was based on Dubé’s doctoral dissertation at Montréal’s Concordia University. The book includes significant amounts of academic language but also lots of interesting information and ideas that a general reader can appreciate.
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All Over the Map
I could recommend Erica Rutherford based solely for the book’s wealth of vibrant photos. However, it’s the story of Rutherford’s life and the analysis of her works that make the book so worthwhile. I suspect …
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We Were There
THE EXHILARATION of visiting Queer Lens: A History of Photography at Los Angeles’ Getty Center begins at the museum’s front steps, which have been painted in rainbow stripes with the words “Celebrate Love” sweeping across them.
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Art Briefs
It’s high time we had a CD devoted entirely to piano music by gay and lesbian composers—and not played by just any pianist, but by the internationally renowned David Kadouch. Born in Nice in 1985, Kadouch has been praised for his elegance, insight, emotional power, and eloquence as a performer—all of which are on display here.
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Picturing Kindred Spirits
AS QUEER PEOPLE, we seldom learn our community’s history through the same channels as our straight siblings. Instead, we must seek it out ourselves and either rely on published histories or piece together our own research. Finding LGBT historical figures before the mid-20th century who were not white, cisgender, or bestowed with significant privilege is especially difficult. Queer historical figures often fall into two categories: those who had the safety or social cachet to tell their own stories, or those whose lives were recorded only because they were caught, institutionalized, or sensationalized. More Butch Heroes, Ria Brodell’s sequel to their 2018 book Butch Heroes, uncovers and memorializes historical gender-nonconforming figures, affirming that queer and trans lives today are not new but the continuation of a once-hidden legacy.
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‘It will be seen as a political exhibition.’
John R. Killacky interviews the curator of The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869–1939, Jonathan D. Katz.
MoreAmrita Sher-Gil’s Crossing Worlds
AMRITA SHER-GIL’S striking beauty and moody self-portraits have linked her to Frida Kahlo in the popular imagination. Both are examples of flamboyant painters who were fearlessly bisexual and exploited the medium of self-portraiture to tell the story of their turbulent lives in the male-dominated art world of the prewar years.
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