Antonio Lopez: Future Funk Fashion

Antonio Lopez, a Puerto Rican illustrator whose distinctive style I recalled from Interview magazine, lured me to El Museo del Barrio for the first time.

The curators call the exhibition "Future Funk Fashion" but "Transfusion" might have been better name.  Lopez and Juan Ramos, his lover and creative partner, brought some color to the very white fashion world of the 80s. They signed their joint work "Antonio."

Pat Cleveland, one of the first successful African American models, hung with them.  I once rode a ferry with her to Super Paradise in Mykonos after graduating from Columbia.

Lopez went to FIT with Gerard Malanga, Andy Warhol's first boyfriend.  They're both pictured in the same yearbook spread, included in the exhibit.  A couple of Andy portraits in the show suggest Antonio had some ambivalence about their eventual boss at Interview. Dollar signs and crosses define Andy as much as his silkscreens, but what does that screw at the top represent?

Here, they mash up Andy with Grace Jones.

Antonio adored divas like Carmen Miranda, Josephine Baker and Miss Diana Ross.

Like Andy, they had a thing for heels.

Matisse, break dancing and Tom of Finland influenced the way Antonio depicted men.

AIDS killed Lopez in 1987, and Ramos eight years later.