The Bunker Playlists III

A trip to the Bunker Art Space is always a treat, especially this year when I felt like a pig in shit!

"Untitled (Pig)" by Sean Mellyn (2001)

Beyond The Rainbow

That's mostly because "Beyond The Rainbow," one of three exhibits this season, comprises dozens of works by contemporary LGBTQ+ artists, many of whom were unfamiliar.  Lesbians seem to be underrepresented, perhaps because they face greater barriers in the art world or because the collection reflects the idiosyncratic taste of its owner, Beth Rudin DeWoody.  We all have our biases, after all.  

 

"Emergence" by Uman (2021)

"Hot House" by Ana Benaroya (2019)

"Gravity's Dream" by Chitra Ganesh (2008)

DeWoody, however, implemented a thoughtful workaround by inviting a diverse group "from the community" (including artist Mickalene Thomas) to curate the otherwise superb show.

"¡Que Vivan Los Novios!" by Chris Cortez (2021)

Untitled by Rafa Esparza (2024)

"Sawn Man" by Kyle Dunn (2023)

"Ode to Oscar Wilde" by Maynard Monrow (2025) 

I really, really coveted this small sketch.  The subject and I are in the same privileged boat, although I've managed to float through most of my life without the proper nomenclature.

"Study of a Cis White Man (Ryan)" by Nash Glynn (2020)

Until I learned that the artist who created this work transitioned from one gender to another, it seemed a little out of left field although it did bring back welcome memories of Herr Cucaracha.  I doubt if my father would have appreciated the metaphor.

"V Double W " by Pippa Garner (1995-2010)

"Sunday Confessions" by Chloe Chiasson (2022)

It's hard to imagine that the closeted (and tortured) Anthony Perkins ever entered a photo booth, or that his picture would ever appear on a milk carton, exponentially increasing the campiness of this strip.  Producer Ryan Murphy really did a meta number on the Psycho star in Monster: The Ed Gein Story where Perkins appears as a conflicted character playing Gein in Alfred Hitchcock's iconic film.

"Man (Juice, Milk Cartons)" by Elad Lassry (2012)

This gay caballero is pretty in pink and packin', too!

"Untitled (from the Barbie Town Parties Portrait Series)"
by Matias Sauter Morera (2024)

Actually, the preponderance of exposed if (mostly) flaccid penises made me wonder if they had offended any bluenoses among the Palm Beach crowd that pays extra for guided tours of the Bunker Art Space.

"GI Drag" by Guerra de la Paz (2005-06)

"J & B" by Alannah Farrell (2019)

Michael, the young, chatty photographer who checked us in seemed flustered by the question.  "Some people are a little shocked but there haven't been any incidents," he ventured cautiously.

"Chiseled Devotions" by Mike Kuchar (2022)

I'll admit this "tearoom-themed" wall shocked me a bit, perhaps because I feared public toilets for much of my young adult life.  "The Would Be" by Robert Beck (2007) separates "Hustler" (left) by Jimmy Wright (1975) from"Stall (Factory Bathroom, Long Island City, Queens)" by Michael Chuapoco (2023) in what I'm guessing is a curatorial joke about a common location for gay cruising. 

I overheard a docent describe this miniature piece as a metaphor for how HIV ravages the human body.

Untitled by Charles Ledray (1995)

"Unfortunately," she continued in her plummy British accent, "most of the men you see on this wall were lost to AIDS."  If my David had lived, he would have caught up to me in age this month.

"Gay Semiotics" by Hal Fischer (1977/2014)

As much as I support the idea of encouraging the public to view art "freshly"--that is, without preconceived notions about the artist, genre or time period--the process for identifying works by matching numbered captions to thumbnail reproductions in cheap catalogs that visitors are discouraged from taking home is a pain in the ass.  Worse, the staff ignored my e-mail request just a day after my visit to find out who had painted these two arresting works.

I'm guessing that the Salman depicted in this painting

"The Artist Eroticized (Salman)" by Jenna Gribbon (2020)

. . . is the same guy who painted this.  I've liked Toor's distinctive work since I first encountered it at the Whitney Museum two years ago.  He definitely seems to be having a moment.

"Stoop" by Salman Toor (2020)

The curatorial team also has done an excellent job of acknowledging our "gay elders."  This "Portrait after a Snuffbox" by George Sand (1846) may very well be the oldest work in the exhibit.

One gallery, furnished as a lavender-walled reading room, is delightfully called "A Wunderkammer of Weirdos."  That's Quentin Crisp, outside the Chelsea Hotel in 1978.  

Duncan Hannah, a straight (!) fixture of the downtown scene in the 70s painted this well-scuffed book cover by the godfather of gay wit.

Tom Healy, a poet, curator, and advocate for queer culture, had this to say in an essay about the room:

Let's start with Scott Covert's painting of William Burroughs with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.  It looks like a summoning of their ghosts for a seance.  I met both Burroughs and Ginsberg.  Burroughs had a famously raspy but deep and oracular monotone--which someone described as a voice that was "half-preacher, half-hitman."  Everyone called him the old bull.  He was blunt and he loved pronouncements, like: "Artists are here to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed."

(2018-19)

With the three flat items on this table, ceramicist Seth Bogart has memorialized esssential elements of my introduction to gay culture: although I didn't pick up a matchbook on my sole excursion to the Spike, a famous New York City leather bar I treasure my copy of Hollywood Babylon, a seminal text of apocryphal camp (see the death by enchilada of Lupe Velez), and Larry Kramer's depiction of Fire Island promiscuity in Faggots scared me away until 1988 (and likely saved my life, too).  The "Greek" Crisco container by Scooter LaForge hit an anachronistic funny bone.

I would have guessed that Paul Cadmus sketched this fellow.  Wrong!

"Untitled (Gladiator)" by John Brock Lear (1983)

Instead, this brooding study of Glennway Wescott, a poet and writer who lived much of the 20th century as an openly gay man, represents the gay artist I think most deserving of a major retrospective.

Joe Brainard, whom I previously knew only by name, created these two untitled works in 1975, the year I graduated from college.  They made me even more eager to read his collected letters which end in 1994, a year before his death from AIDS-related pneumonia.

No LGBT-focused show would be complete without works--even lesser ones--by Keith Haring and David Wojnarowicz, two of my favorite artists, gay or straight.

Lovers (1980)

"Untitled (Stroll Drawing)" (1985)

The curators of "Beyond The Rainbow" aren't snooty about the photographers they include in the show.  Cecil Beaton, of all people, shot this double exposure of the Johnson twins and Andy Warhol at the Factory.  Only Jay (far left), an interior designer, survives today.  Jed, Andy's longtime companion and creative collaborator, went down on TWA Flight #800.

When Peter Hujar took this atmospheric portrait of Darrel Ellis in 1981, the downtown New York City photographer and David Wojnarowicz had just become lovers.  AIDS killed all three artists but only the white men became famous.

Funny, but I've never thought of either Herb Ritts or Tom Bianchi as anything other than commercial gay photographers and wouldn't expect to see their work in a museum.  Ritts, whose celebrity portraits dominated glossy magazines in the '80s and '90s caught Paul Ruebens at peak Peewee.

(1987)

Tom and Audrey gave me a book of photos that Bianchi took in the Pines, where the hunky subjects he favored were plentiful.  He once complimented Arko, sending Florian into a dog dad tizzy.

"Four Male Nudes By Pool" (1988)

Books about Andy Warhol filled a case in the library where I could have spent many hours perusing the shelves which, according to chatty Michael, were repurposed from the Dade County pine used in the construction of the former toy factory now occupied by the Bunker Art Space.

The specially commissioned wall paper is something to behold.

"By. That. Time. Drenched. By. That Time" by Eve Fowler (2016)

One pattern clashes photogenically with a collaged bucket chair

. . . but excising all those throbbing cocks to achieve the R-rated Tom of Finland pattern can only have been a labor of love.

I can't see a good looking man in a sailor's hat without thinking of Brad Davis in Querelle, a ludicrously iconic film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.  It's a far cry from P-Town.

Untitled by John O'Dowd (2020)

Companion Species (Witness)

"Could we begin to steward the planet differently if we humans saw ourselves as related to animals, plants, water and other identities that we share space with?" asks curator Marie Watt who has ties to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy also known as the Iroquois.  

"Modern Ceramic Cat Sculpture" by Harry Steinberg (undated)

"Echo 2" by Jaune Quick-To-See Smith (2000)

"Baako Bishee (Buffalo Above Us) by Wendy Red Star (2022)

"Baako Bishee (Buffalo Above Us) by Wendy Red Star (detail, 2022)

"Birds of a Feather" by Jeffrey Gibson (2017)

"Temple of Nourishment" by Sanaa Gateja (2022)

"Hunters" by Shuvinai Ashoona (2015)

"Fleeta" by G. Peter Jemison (1987)

Untitled by Angus Tait (ca 1940)

Reclamation

Nog Slechts Enkele Dagen (1) [Only a Few Days]" by Miguel-Ángel Cárdenas

"I Have Been Here The Whole Time Whole" by Vanessa German (partial, 2019)

Untitled by Tony Feher (partial, 2006)

"005" by Helmut Lang (2011)

"Untitled (Silver Shoe With Bunnies)" by May Wilson (1960)

"Eyes" by Derek Jarman (1987)

"Futuristic Animal" by Tim Washington (1999)

"The Weed Sprayer" by Narsiso Martinez (2020)

"Sex:  In Progress" by Max Hooper Schneider (2020)

"Besties" by Rufai Zakari (2020)

"Golden Boy" by Nick Cave (partial, 2014)

"5 On #7" by Hugo McCloud (2019)

More Bunker Artspace:

The Bunker Playlists (2024)

The Bunker Playlists II (2025)

Gobsmacked

Fabric isn't usually the medium that comes to mind when I think of art, but a retrospective of the "Alta Moda" line by Dolce and Gabbana demonstrates that it can be used every bit as expressively as paint or marble. 

"From the Heart to the Hands," an exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami gobsmacked me from the first sumptuous gallery with a mirrored ceiling.  It celebrates centuries of Italian culture as much as luxury clothing.  But inquiring minds want to know: who buys this stuff and where do they wear it?

I thought artisanship at this level had been relegated to the past.  Whatever D&G pay their embroiderers, they should get a raise. 

Firenze Collection, F/W 2020-21

The first gallery also showcases the self-portraiture of Anh Duong, a model and actress turned painter and perhaps muse. 

She really gets into the over-the-top spirit of the show, imagining a picnic with the designers, lovers for two decades and business partners since the 1980s.

Duong even gives Liza--who turned 80 this month--a shout-out.  She sang "New York, New York" when D&G staged their couture menswear fashion show at the Rainbow Room in 2018 (I loved that very underrated Martin Scorcese film).

But the clothes are the thing, of course.  D&G started Alta Moda two years earlier and have organized their collections around places and events.

Milano Fiori Gollection, S/S 2014 (left); Venezia Collection, F/W 2021-22

Napoli Collection, F/W 2016-17

Alberobello Collection, F/W 2023-24

Imagine wearing this mask and these platforms at Studio 54 back in the day!

One gallery on the first floor features outfits inspired by the works of Italian Renaissance artists including Botticelli ("The Annunciation").

Chris and I saw the original at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.

We saw another inspiration, Giorgione's"Judith," when we visited the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.  As if the ruffled collars and sleeves weren't statement enough, this shot cuts off the severed head at the gown's bottom.

Milano Rinascimento Collection S/S 2019

Bejeweled harnesess and sandals really class up the distressed jeans look.

Marzamemi Collection, F/W 2022-23

A faux Sicilian temple provided the backdrop for tunic and toga wear.

Sciacca Collection, F/W 2019-20

I couldn't decide if the Divine Mosaics gallery was gaudy or breathtaking.  Maybe both.

Venezia San Marco Collection, F/W 2021-22

Is it wrong to admit this throne impressed me more than the Palo d'Oro?

In this upstairs gallery, you feel as if you've stepped into the 47-minute long ballroom scene--perhaps the longest ever committed to film--in The Leopard. Somehow, I've never gotten around to seeing Luchino Visconti's masterpiece starring Burt Lancaster about the fall of the aristocracy in Palermo during Italian unification in the 19th century.

I guess not everyone puts on their dancing shoes.

In this display, it's almost as if D&G was a house of worship

Colorful doesn't begin to describe the Sicilian gallery.

Even the backs of the platform heels are decorated

. . . and this purse is guaranteed to whet your appetite.

From what feels like the inside of a kaleidoscope you step into a white-out, an almost blinding juxtaposition.

Siracusa Collection, F/W 2022-23

There's nothing quite like cherub shoulder pads . . . 

Crystals, mirrors and chandeliers dominate the next gallery.

Venezia San Marco Collection, F/W 2021-22 (left & center) &
Marzamemi Collection, F/W 2022-23 (right)

Divinely inspired garments introduce Alta Moda's Roma Collection from Fall/Winter 2025.  Does sporting Saint Peter on your shirt ease your admission into heaven?

I doubt if actual papal vestments have anything on these.

The secular look is just as extravagant. The Eternal City looked nothing like this when I visited.  Alta Moda is indeed fantasy for the very rich.

Another gallery re-created the designers' workshop.

We were finally nearing the end of the exhibit.  The scale of it impressed me as much as anything.

I liked the Milano Opera Collection (Spring/Summer, 2020) best, probably because of my recent visit to La Scala.  A specific opera inspired each dress.

La Traviata

Madama Butterfly

Il Barbiere di Siviglia