CHARLEY BROWN SCOTT BURTON CRAIG CARVER ARCH CONNELLY JANET COOLING BETSY DAMON NANCY FRIED EXTENDED SENSIBILITIES HOMOSEXUAL PRESENCE IN CONTEMPORARY ART JEDD GARET GILBERT & GEORGE LEE GORDON HARMONY HAMMOND JOHN HENNINGER JERRY JANOSCO LILI LAKICH LES PETITES BONBONS ROSS PAXTON JODY PINTO CARLA TARDI THE NEW MUSEUM FRAN WINANT EXTENDED SENSIBILITIES HOMOSEXUAL PRESENCE IN CONTEMPORARY ART CHARLEY BROWN HARMONY HAMMOND SCOTT BURTON JOHN HENNINGER CRAIG CARVER JERRY JANOSCO ARCH CONNELLY LILI LAKICH JANET COOLING LES PETITES BONBONS BETSY DAMON ROSS PAXTON NANCY FRIED JODY PINTO JEDD GARET CARLA TARDI GILBERT & GEORGE FRAN WINANT LE.E GORDON Daniel J. Cameron Guest Curator The New Museum EXTENDED SENSIBILITIES STAFF ACTIVITIES COUNCJT . Robin Dodds Isabel Berley HOMOSEXUAL PRESENCE IN CONTEMPORARY ART Nina Garfinkel Marilyn Butler N Lynn Gumpert Arlene Doft ::;·z17 John Jacobs Elliot Leonard October 16-December 30, 1982 Bonnie Johnson Lola Goldring .H6 Ed Jones Nanette Laitman C:35 Dieter Morris Kearse Dorothy Sahn Maria Reidelbach Laura Skoler Rosemary Ricchio Jock Truman Ned Rifkin Charles A. Schwefel INTERNS Maureen Stewart Konrad Kaletsch Marcia Thcker Thorn Middlebrook GALLERY ATTENDANTS VOLUNTEERS Joanne Brockley Connie Bangs Anne Glusker Bill Black Marcia Landsman Carl Blumberg Sam Robinson Jeanne Breitbart Jennifer Q. Smith Mary Campbell Melissa Wolf Marvin Coats Jody Cremin This exhibition is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for BOARD OF TRUSTEES Joanna Dawe the Arts in Washington, D.C., a Federal Agency, and is made possible in Jack Boulton Mensa Dente part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts. Elaine Dannheisser Gary Gale Library of Congress Catalog Number: 82-61279 John Fitting, Jr. Claudia Gould Copyright © 1982 The New Museum Arthur Goldberg Susannah Hardaway 65 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003 Allen Goldring Cham Hendon Eugene Gormal). Heather Holden Essay copyright © 1982 Daniel J. Cameron Nanette Laitman June Kostar Design by Abby Goldstein Natalie S. Lang Rosina Lardieri Typesetting by Candice Odell J. Patrick Lannan Constance Manna Printed by Eastern Press Vera List Chris Maartens Henry Luce III Carol McKinney Denis O'Brien Debra Mintz THE NEW MUSEUM Herman Schwartzman Elvira Rohr 65 Fifth Avenue Patrick Savin Ellen Vanden Broeck New York, NY 10003 Marcia Thcker Martial Westburg Melissa Wolf CONTENTS IV PREFACE The Impassive Double Scott Burton, John Henninger, Ross Paxton, V ACKNOWLEDGMENTS and J edd Garet 6 SENSIBILITY AS CONTENT Romantic Projections Nancy Fried and Craig Carver 10 THE HOMOSEXUAL SELF I PART ONE Rituals of the Organism 32 THE HOMOSEXUAL WORLD/PART THREE Harmony Hammond and Betsy Damon Nature Sublimated Confrontational Transvestism J ody Pinto and Fran Winant Charley Brown, Lee Gordon, and The World Transformed Les Petites Bonbons Arch Connelly, Carla Tardi, and Gilbert & George 18 THE HOMOSEXUAL OTHER/PART TWO The Beautiful Lover 40 SCRAPBOOK Janet Cooling, Jerry Janosco, and Lili Lakich 47 ARTISTS' STATEMENTS AND BIOGRAPHIES III PREFACE At least once a year, The New Museum presents an exhibi­ pand through public participation now that the exhibition has tion organized by a guest curator. This is done, in part, in opened. This kind of dialog, which often stimulates con­ order to expand the Museum's esthetic, enlarge the scope of troversy, is essential to The New Museum and is, we believe, its sensibility, challenge our own preconceptions about the a crucial part of the intellectual and esthetic growth of our kind of work we feel is important, and provide a forum for community of interest. points of view which are different from our own or which I am most grateful to Dan Cameron, who initiated and or­ have evolved from the perspective of another area of exper­ ganized the exhibition; to Robin Dodds and John Jacobs who tise. Each year we review dozens of exhibition ideas, and this co-coordinated it; to the many interns and volunteers who as­ year we selected Dan Cameron to organize Extended Sen­ sisted in all aspects of its presentation; and to the entire staff sibilities: Homosexual Presence in Contemporary Art be­ and Board of Trustees of The New Museum, who supported ' cause his modest proposal immediately provoked a flurry of the exhibition from its inception with their characteristic en­ ' ' discussion, argument, excitement, and questions. thusiasm and intellectual generosity. Our very special thanks It is the first museum exhibition in the United States to to the Robert Miller Gallery for their thoughtful assistance, address an important question: in what way and to what ex­ and to the New York State Council on the Arts and the Na­ tent has some of the most interesting contemporary art ad­ tional Endowment for the Arts for the ongoing support which dressed and reflected the concerns of the homosexual com­ makes our exhibition possible. munity, which has substantially increased its visibility in the past few years. The discourse among us generated by Dan Marcia Tucker Cameron's proposal has continued, and will undoubtedly ex- Director IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A project like this one is impossible to actualize without an back. Thorn Middlebrook and Evan Waters have both helped enormous amount of cooperation, which I have received in me in more tangible ways, for which they are held in gener­ very large doses. The greatest thanks go, of course, to the ous esteem. artists, who have been all too aware that they are pfirtici­ The New Museum has been unflinching in their collective pants in more than just another theme show, and who have support of my ideas, although Marcia Tucker must be cited provided the greatest amount of encouragement and excite­ for first taking notice of them, as must Tim Yohn and Robin ment. The second greatest thanks go in turn to the artists Dodds for seeing them into print. Also, a special thanks who allowed me to look at their work and share my ideas with must be given to John Jacobs and Maria Reidelbach for orga­ them, but whose work isn't included in the final selection. nizing and executing the installation of the exhibition itself. Among both categories there are those who have given Acknowledgment should be given to the pioneers in this generously of their time and ideas in leading me to artists field; besides Harmony and Hudson, these include Sandy that I would not otherwise have known about. I would like to de Sando, who organized "The Third Wave" in 1981 at the late single out Scott Burton (who shared with me the archives Hibbs Gallery in New York; John Perreault, who was the for his ill-fated gay issue of Art-Rite), Harmony Hammond first to champion gay identity in art; Arlene Raven, who is (who managed to produce a total offour lists of artists for me), eloquently keeping the faith in Venice, California; and Hudson of Buzztone Outlet in Cincinnati (who shared his list Arch Connelly, for first suggesting the connection between of artists from his "Out Art" experiment last year), John gay sensibility and mannerist art that got the ball rolling. Willenbecher ("archivist to the stars") and Janet Cooling Heresies Collective, whose out-of-print Lesbian Art and (who has great friends). In addition to the artists in the exhi­ Artists issue of their journal has stood the test of time mag­ bition, I also wish to thank the lenders to the exhibition, nificently, deserves special mention. both galleries and individuals, for generously making avail­ Lastly, Steve Grenyo, who thinks I'm going to thank him able works to this exhibition, and for providing information for helping me type my third draft, has been equal parts and assistance in the preparation of this catalog. guardian angel, nemesis, and inspiration. Among my friends and colleagues, I am indebted to Bob Littman, Jay Gorney, and Ray Kass for imaginative feed- Daniel J. Cameron v SENSIBILITY AS CONTENT One of the problems of treating homosexual expression as a whether forced or voluntary-is only a buying-time stage in living issue in the 1980's is the dissipation of general interest the equalization process. To become truly free, the smaller in the gay and lesbian movement of a decade ago. A large culture must be able to hold the larger culture completely in cross section of the gay population in this country wanted the sway, to captivate the oppressor by a perfect assertion of gay movement to become a program of liberation from dis­ self. Reabsorption into the whole then occurs on a qualified crimination, a gradual infusion of gay life-styles with dignity, basis, and the subculture has made an inroad. and an entire revolution in social taste, in that order. It was The analogy between black people and gay people breaks hoped, at the very least, that homosexuality might be made down with the realization that gays have never been uniquely permanently non-repugnant to the American family/church/ oppressed as a group. Homosexuals are discriminated state nexus, and that gay people might take legitimate pos­ against, often hated, generally misunderstood, and some­ session of that part of the cultural landscape they had already times murdered or assaulted for being gay, but that is quite laid claims to over decades of clandestine infiltration. When it a different matter than oppression. Society doesn't require, turned out that equality was only a matter of the political tide for example, that gays be exploited for their labor, as it has shifting in one direction or another, many jumped the libera­ with racial minorities. But the racist tradition of insulting tion ship. As a result, being gay today means little more than blacks in person but not in print is only inverted by Jerry Fal­ inheriting and maintaining a nebulous set of reference points well's anti-gay propaganda, which grows more vitriolic in somewhere outside an ill-defined, sociosexual norm.