Yes, I consider my work pornography. Pornography means to stimulate peoples’ sexual feelings, and I’m always very aware of that. My motive is lower than art… If I don’t have an erection when I’m doing a drawing, I know it’s no good… I find the animal in a man attractive… an object of desire…
My whole life long I have done nothing but interpret my dreams of ultimate masculinity, and draw them… I was determined that, in my drawings at least, gay men would be open and masculine, and the sex, no matter how heavy, would always be free and positive. — Tom of Finland*
A panel discussion and reception will kick off the exhibition TOM OF FINLAND: HIGHWAY PATROL, GREASY RIDER. AND OTHER SELECTED WORKS at David Kordansky Gallery in New York. Join Nayland Blake, Claire Gilman, Brontez Purnell, and Durk Dehner—keeper of the flame of all things Tom—for a conversation about the artist’s work within a contemporary context.
See link below for details.
TOM OF FINLAND: HIGHWAY PATROL, GREASY RIDER, AND OTHER SELECTED WORKS
January 13 through February 25
OPENING NIGHT PANEL DISCUSSION
Nayland Blake, Durk Dehner, Claire Gilman, and Brontez Purnell
Thursday, January 12, at 5 pm
David Kordansky Gallery
520 West 20th Street, New York City
*Tom of Finland (Touko Laaksonen), Tom of Finland: The Art of Pleasure, edited by Burkhard Riemschneider (Cologne: Taschen, 2004), 68, 106, 120, 152, 248. Text © the Tom of Finland Foundation and Taschen.
Tom of Finland, Highway Patrol, Greasy Rider, and Other Selected Works, David Kordansky Gallery, New York, curated with Tom of Finland Foundation, January 12–February 25, 2023, from top: Untitled, circa 1966–1990 (detail), graphite and mixed media on paper; Untitled (Preparatory Drawing), circa 1969, graphite on paper; Untitled (from “Setting Sail”), 1974, graphite on paper (2 images); Untitled (from Kake volume 22–”Highway Patrol”), 1980, pen and ink on paper; Untitled, circa 1966–1990, mixed media on paper; Untitled (from Kake volume 21–”Greasy Rider”), 1978, pen and ink on paper (2 images). Image photographs (8) by Jeff McLane.
Artwork © Tom of Finland Foundation, Los Angeles, courtesy the foundation and David Kordansky Gallery.
