Day 6: Joe Bobowicz

Francis Picabia, circa 1923-1927 The light contact of limbs - both big and small - in this work is exquisite. A delicate and poetic depiction of queer romance.

Brenna (Clear Poncho), Ryan McGinley, 2007 The interesting thing about Ryan McGinley is his ability to merge the candid and performative. The friends he’s capturing know the getaway will involve their photos being taken, but given the adventure of the trip tender moments arise naturally.

BLOOD TEARS SPUNK PISS, Gilbert & George, 1996 As well as the aforementioned tension, the assurance of Gilbert & George’s work is part and parcel of their activism. You might not accept them; you might cringe at their stark elderly bodies; you might even find them offensive; but you will still see them striding proudly through Brick Lane, recognised as local celebrities.

Jake (Cowboy Slant), 2008, Ryan McGinley The gift of McGinley’s to curate magical moments is part of his work’s splendour. Like Mapplethorpe, McGinley would document the truth; he was not a poseur. A student of Parson’s School of Design, McGinley socialised in Lower East Side, New York, an area which spliced subcultures. It was here that his ratpack circle of friends - skaters, gays, club kids - would coalesce. Taking these friends out to the caves to explore meant he was still amongst real companions, just in an alien environment - which as we can see, harvested inimitable imagery. ‘Well, that’s the thing with a lot of my friends downtown. All these subcultures are mixing. You have skaters hanging out with club kids, hanging out with fags, hanging out with graffiti artists. No one really cares anymore, at least in the city. It’s not like it used to be. Even 10 years ago, if you had mentioned the word “gay” or “homosexual” in the terms of skateboarding or graffiti, people would look at you like you were fucking crazy. But nowadays, everyone’s hanging out together, and I think that maybe my photography helps that out a little bit.’ - Ryan McGinley, Conversations on Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art with Larry Clark and Sylvia Wolf, 25 March 2003.

Jack (Hanging Rock), 2009, Ryan McGinley One of the questions artist Richard Porter recently posed was what does queerness look like outside of the urban? I wonder, what is a queer aesthetic outside of the clubs, clothing and culture of the cities we inhabit. Perhaps, this tangible concept of comfort pushed by Foucault, whereby physical contact and tenderness can exist amongst bodies irreverent to gendered and heteronormative codes…

Portrait of Ian, 1981, David Hockney Hockney captures the male visage with a warm and palpable intimacy.

Cold Street, 1991, Gilbert & George A lifestyle choice that highlights Gilbert & George’s technique of tension is their choice ‘to live in sin’ as opposed to marrying. ‘We want to be weird normal’, states George. By choosing to conform, they are simultaneously mocking the ideology they follow; a covert subversion of the norm.

Bloody Mooning, 1996, Gilbert & George Even the name of this work is imbued with a hyper British tone; a fine complement to the stiff stances of the suited artists. The deadpan stares of Gilbert & George directly contrast the part-jovial, part-erotic exposure of buttocks. Again, tension.

Untitled, image from Robert Mapplethorpe: Early Works 1970-1974 (New York: Robert Miller Gallery) Marbled framing, tiled background and hidden face reconfigure the otherwise solely erotic image. The leather trousers remain a fetishistic item of appeal, but become, also, one of the multiple materials that forms the mixed-media artwork. The taped band-aid - something which by contrast was not initially erotic - takes on a dual essence; to be blunt, we see a bloodied plaster and an aresehole.

Untitled, image from Robert Mapplethorpe: Early Works 1970-1974 (New York: Robert Miller Gallery) The banana is a fruit easily sexualised based purely on its phallic form. This is apparent in the artwork but something more subtle is at play. The keychain nods to the BDSM scene Mapplethorpe engaged in. The leather strap perhaps a reference to the cockrings Mapplethorpe would photograph himself wearing and the keys, a nod to power play.