Visual
AIDS and The Body
present:
It Feels Like Love But It's The Drugs
Curated by José Luis Cortés
MARTIN WONG
Top Cat, 1990,
Acrylic on canvas, 21 x 30,
Courtesy of the Estate of Martin Wong and P.P.O.W Gallery, New York.
NOTE: Previous exhibitions are also available
on the website.
At fifteen, I realized what I liked sexually. I met this
very good looking Canadian who picked me up and took me to his hotel
room. We began to have sex, he slapped me on the face, took me from
behind while pulling my hair. When it was all over I—knees shaking—felt
exhilarated, fulfilled, happy. From then on I developed a fixation with
rough sex, being dominated and one night stands. I hardly ever dated
and have been promiscuous ever since. I went on living my life this
way. Pain, pleasure, sex, beauty, drugs and love have always being intertwined
within my essence.
Experts have tried to find a cause or explanation for
sadism and masochism and why some people find these practices pleasurable.
Some mention childhood experiences, endorphin-based mechanisms, learned
behavior, genetic disposition or simple conscious choice. It makes no
difference to me. It is what it is.
While living in Berlin, I met this skinhead who looked
like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. We did some ecstasy and
went to his apartment where we began kissing passionately. As I was
falling for him, he whispered to my ear "it feels like love, but
it's the drugs". Ouch! I couldn't believe what I heard, but it
was true.
Hedonism, drugs, sex for money, love, outlaws, prisons,
BDSM, machismo, humiliation, skanks, unsafe sex and young men—my
experiences, my likes and my wants compelled me to put together this
web gallery. I couldn't resist the opportunity to express them through
the artwork of some of my peers.
Self Portrait (Vile), (1979) by Jimmy de Sana
was the first piece of art I selected. I find it dark—scary even—but
beautiful. It turns me on. It was the cover of Vile Magazine. It is
strong and shocking. De Sana's work has been described as anti-art.
William Borough describes it as "strangely explicit to purely symbolic".
Martin Wong’s connection with Puerto Ricans in New
York sparked my interest in him. I met him in the mid 90s at David Hirsh’s
apartment. I was intrigued by Wong’s love relationship with Miguel
(Mickey) Piñero, the Puerto Rican poet "turned" into
a heroin addict at Rikers Island jail at 19, who—nevertheless—was
a seven time Tony Awards nominee and founder of the ground breaking,
Nuyorican Poet's Cafe. Wong and Piñero, two masters in their
own right, produced one of the most interesting forms of creating art.
The Poet put his jail experiences in verse and gave them to the Painter
as presents. Wong would them capture Piñero ‘s words in
paintings, offering them to the world in what I can only refer to as
a, "labor of love".
A beautiful example of this is, The Annunciation According
to Mikey Piñero (Cup Cake and Paco), (1984) in which Wong
depicts a jail memory by Piñero. He includes Spanish text of
a conversation between two prisoners:
“I said to leave me alone I am no faggot!"
The one on his knees says, “So what? Listen to me
negrito. Let me tell you something; You are driving me crazy.
I am a desperate man. I am enchulao with you. I want to be yours and
I want you to be mine. What you want me to do for you?”
Wong’s connection to Piñero and
his stories, is also evident in C76 Junior (1988) where he
turns a jail cell into something sublime. The prisoner seems to be sleeping
in a bed of clouds. This provokes in me thoughts of bondage, sex, crime
and innocence.
John Lesnick’s, Chair II (1989) reminds
me of something I read once: “some men need to be tied up to feel
free."
I have selected a work by David Wojnarowicz, gay subculture
icon, as both the first and last image in this web gallery. Toxic
Junky (1983) fascinates me with how it mixes crude realism with
comics. Untitled (Map), (1990) takes me thru the darker side
of gay life towards a calmer, tender world. Perhaps a place we are all
looking for.
When I look at the work, I can't but think, IT FEELS LIKE
LOVE.
In the Curator’s Statement:
American
Noir: Into a Dark Past
B i o g r a p h y
José Luis Cortés was born in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania to Puerto Rican parents. His family moved to Puerto
Rico when he was three years old, and he lived there until the
age of 28, when he moved to New York City. A gay man, José
Luis’s artistic career took off more when he began producing
work inspired by the 1990’s New York City gay scene. José
Luis’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums
in Amsterdam, London, Berlin, New York, Miami, Vienna, among other
locations. His work has been reviewed in the New York Times,
Art in America, and Out Magazine and many other
publications. You can see more of his work at the Visual AIDS
Online Registry. and learn more about him at joselcortes.blogspot.com.
José Luis is also an AIDS activist. He was a founding
member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark
exhibition, The First Ten (1995), which showcased the
work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban
youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can
become a part of their daily lives. In 2013 José Luis participated
in VIAL, a project of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR)
Background
While living in NYC in the late 1990s, the gay porn industry became
José Luis’s obsession. He spent several years documenting
this industry from the inside out. He performed as a stripper
at Eros I, the first gay male porn theater in the United States.
During his performance intermissions, José Luis would step
out to photograph the then soon-to-be destroyed theaters by the
Times Square’s “renewal” (or “Disneyfication”)
plan set in motion by NYC’s mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
It was during this time that José Luis began painting
on newspapers, mostly the New York Times, using only black and
white gouache while letting other colors already in the newspapers
bleed into the images he paints. Both his work and medium reflect
the complexity of his life history as a gay man and artist. The
short-lived nature and deceptive fragility of newspaper is the
ideal medium to document the context in which José Luis
life and art happen. When asked why he chooses newspaper instead
of canvas, José Luis quickly replies, "Because newspapers
document what happens in the world; and my work documents what
happens in my life."
Paradoxically, as the Times Square’s all-male theaters
were disappearing, José Luis spent years preserving their
images in newspapers printed during those same days in which gay
life in NYC was being transformed. The scenes painted in those
newspapers depict the gay theater era intertwined with “the
news that’s fit to print” of the 1990s. The images
as well as the medium—newspapers printed in the 1990s—are
now time capsules. Fifteen years later, those images and newspapers
are still around to transport us back in time.
In 1999, New York Times’ art critic Roberta Smith referred
to Jose Luis’s work as “muscularly expressionistic
paintings on newspaper.” More recently, his work has been
the subject of analysis in an attempt to understand the intersection
where life and art converge. In this regard, Richard Rothstein,
contributor for ‘Art and Perception,’ has described
José Luis as an artist that “paints within the framework
of an odd lifestyle pattern.” However, this is a rather
narrow view of both his work and his life. The same way José
Luis’s homoerotic work evokes raw emotions, other facets
of his work— his parents’ wedding portrait, portraits
of his niece and his deceased father, as well as urban scenes
of the Puerto Rican neighborhoods where he grew up— evoke
tender emotions and reveals yet another dimension of his life
and art. Pablo Picasso once said, “It is not what the artist
does that counts, but what he is.” José Luis’s
paintings make us want to know more about him and the world around
us.
There is another medium through which José Luis expresses
his life and art: live performances in which his body becomes
his canvas, once again, blurring the distinction between art and
life. Some of these performances are evocations of his days as
a Times Square stripper; others involve applying makeup that makes
him indistinguishable from his self-portraits on newspaper. During
other performances some of his self-portrait images are tattooed
to his body. He has executed these performances in art galleries,
gay clubs, museums, and even children’s classrooms.
In his current work, “Men Wanted,” Jose Luis presents
a collection of paintings depicting the now defunct Times Square’s
gay theaters, images inspired by gay sex ads, photographs he took
while working as a stripper, and self-portraits.
Every
month, Visual AIDS invites guest curators, drawn
from both the arts and AIDS communities, to select several works
from the Frank Moore Archive Project.
Founded in 1988 by arts professionals as a response to the effects
of AIDS on the arts community and as a way of organizing artists,
arts institutions, and arts audiences towards direct action, Visual
AIDS has evolved into an arts organization with a two-pronged mission:
1) Through the Frank Moore Archive Project, the largest slide library
of work by artists living with HIV and the estates of artists who
have died of AIDS, Visual AIDS historicizes the contributions of
visual artists with HIV while supporting their ability to continue
making art and furthering their professional careers, 2) In collaboration
with museums, galleries, artists, schools, and AIDS service organizations,
Visual AIDS produces exhibitions, publications, and events utilizing
visual art to spread the message “AIDS IS NOT OVER.”
The Body is
now the most frequently visited HIV/AIDS-related site on the Web,
according to the Medical Library Association and also the most frequently
visited disease-specific site on the Web, according to Hot 100.
The Body contains a rich collection of information on topics ranging
from HIV prevention, state-of-the-art treatment issues, humor and
art. An invaluable resource, The Body is used by clinicians, patients
and the general public. Part of The Body's mission is to enable
artistic expression to reach the Web, and to join art with other
resources needed to help the public comprehend the enormity and
devastation of the AIDS pandemic and to experience its human and
spiritual dimensions. |
Visual
AIDS
526 W. 26th St. # 510, New York, NY 10001
Phone: 212.627.9855
· Fax: 212.627.9815
e-mail: info@visualAIDS.org
Visual AIDS Gallery
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