One of the gay artists whose exhibit we’ll be visiting on our Sat. April 16 LGBT gallery tour is arguably the world’s most famous living gay artist, second only to Jasper Johns.  Currently 87 years old, his paintings are in the permanent collections of every important museum across the globe.  In the 1960s this artist was a pioneer of his particular art movement and soon became a legend in his time.  The exhibit of his we’ll be visiting is showcasing all-new abstract paintings that are selling in the range of $1.5 – $2 million, about the most expensive new works of art this month in all 300 of Chelsea’s galleries.  No, it’s not Robert Rauschenberg, who died a few years ago, but this artist is in Rauschenberg’s league.  Find out who this artist is, and enjoy his latest creations, on Saturday’s tour.

Another highlight of this same LGBT gallery tour will be a show by a lesbian artist who begins with Depression Era photographs originally taken by Russell Lee for the U.S. Farm Security Administration, and then photoshops them to change all the men in the photos to women.  It’s not that she grafts or cuts and pastes images of women onto men’s images.  Rather, she uses her computer to literally manipulate jawlines, facial hair, adams’ apples and the like, so that the men quite literally have a sex change operation.  These men are not necessarily feminized – indeed, some of the post-handled subjects appear quite butch – but they have become female nevertheless.  Particularly striking are the scenes of once-hetero mixed gender couples now brazenly open dyke partners living in rural Americana circa 1940.

A third highlight of our tour will be a gay Canadian artist whose exhibit of sculptures is breathtakingly original.  He utilizes a wide variety of materials – plaster, crystals, thousands of yards of sewing thread, and much more – to create elegant swans and swarms of bees, all of them encased in huge plexiglass boxes.  This artist also incorporates busts of decaying werewolf heads into the pieces to make us question our concept of beauty.  His work is almost impossible to put into words, but a New York Times art critic recently called the sculptures we’ll be seeing a “cataclysmic transformation extended in time and space.”

These are just 3 of 7 exhibits we’ll visit that day.  There will, as always, be lots of opportunity for socializing in and outside of the galleries.  Join us rain or shine for a great gay afternoon!

Rafael Risemberg, Ph.D.
Founder and Director
New York Gallery Tours