Past Events

PLAySPaCE: gays GAZE
January 15–22

PLAySPACE Gallery, San Francisco campus
Gallery hours: Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday noon-3 p.m.

Please contact the gallery with further questions: playspace@cca.edu

gays GAZE

The purpose of this exhibit is to create a dialogue between artists who work with a similar theme and to provoke discourse focused on homoerotic representations of masculine desire, and its place in contemporary art practice.

The artists include:

Jason Hanasik
Patrick Hillman
John Jenkins
Danny Keith
Erik Scollon

Homoerotic art is generally seen as a genre akin to the spy novel. It is cliché. It is a visual formula created for a specific audience with a clear intention—made by gay men for gay men for their sexual pleasure or amusement. The artists in this exhibit include Jason Hanasik, Patrick Hillman, John Jenkins, Danny Keith, and Erik Scollon. All make sexually explicit work. Each follows the rules of the genre to various degrees, such as the depiction of idealized male figures, the depiction of gay sex acts, or the depiction of attire associated with masculine personae (cowboy, soldier, athlete, etc.).

The artists are very aware of how their work operates within the scope of homoerotic art making; however, the genre is called into question within their work as well. While queer sexuality is displayed in much of the work, the art in this exhibit is not intended to sexually arouse. Arguably, there is beauty and sexiness in these images that could lead to prurient thoughts by a viewer, but this condition is secondary to artifice. The tension in this work is not in its subject matter; rather, the tension exists in how work with this subject matter is viewed and positioned within the art world, which (like most things) is dominated by heterosexuals.

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