Review: Gay Art

Artist(s): Various.

Here is the third gay illustration book published by Arsenal Pulp Press, after Out/Lines and Lust Unearthed. Anthologist Thomas Waugh has also worked on Gay Art, but this time, in collaboration with Felix Lance Falkon, since this book is an updated reprint of Falkon’s 1972 book, the first of its kind.
Gay Art (available from Amazon) is divided in three parts: a short history of male and gay illustration (from Ancient Greece to modern times), seven focus on artists (well-known or almost forgotten), and a thematic collection (from orgies to youth and S/M). At 250 pages and in a large format, it’s a hefty volume, with plenty of styles and themes included, as well as short essays by Falkon, and new (often funny) comments by Waugh for each picture.
For me, the most interesting thing about this book is the way new information was found between the two versions, and how censorship has evolved since the beginning of the 70′s. A lot of artists which Falkon is writing about have since revealed their real name (Falkon himself drew some of the art under a pen name), but some are still completely mysterious. I find rather moving the idea of those anonymous drawings from decades ago, when men couldn’t freely love each other (it might not be completely free nowadays, but it’s far better in Western countries). As for censorship, most images showing gay young men (I don’t know the “age” of the guys originally drawn, but it seems to me they were late teenagers) are now cropped, while the very violent bondage/domination ones (some showing blood and torn members) are left intact, which says a lot about our society’s hang-ups. The idea of youths having a sexual life is taboo, but the fantasies of sex mixed with violence are okay.
A large number of the illustrations included in this book weren’t in Waugh’s previous two books, and some were even completely new to me. For that, and for the late 60′s/early 70′s perspective of the original author on art, gay rights and society, Gay Art does deserve its subtitle, “a historic collection”.

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