discrimiNATION - Raymond Majerski, Maryland Institute, College of Art

Artist Statement

My work reflects the concerns of a gay man who’s been intimately involved with two institutions that have relied upon gay talent and spirit while at the same time denying the true nature of that talent and spirit. What you see in this set of work is the crucifix and Venus de Milo juxtaposed with the center of the gay male erotic experience, the erect phallus.

The Catholic Church and mainstream aesthetic culture have used gay fringe culture to aestheticize their agendas. This transmutation of the gay erotic imagination and energy can be seen in such instances as the male exclusivity of the Catholic hierarchy and cloistering of men, the glorification of the male body by such artists as Michael Angelo, the voluptuousness of St. Sebastian and John the Beloved resting his head on the chest of Christ. Numerous other, more subtle tropes, such as the sexualized depiction of oversized hands and feet on Renaissance figurative sculpture and the contemporary male body shaving that’s recently become fashionable among straight youth are, in actuality, a hidden gay language that’s found its way into the heterosexual lexicon. Mainstream culture has appropriated the aesthetics of gay male culture while denying the true nature of this culture. This appropriation can be seen in the fashion, film and music industries—from Soviet film director’s Sergio Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin to the look of teen idols N’Sync—but the undertones, which give these cultural products their resonance, are at the same time denied. The veneration of male youth and vitality and gay male taste from such underground sources as artist Tom of Finland and director John Waters, as seen in his early, campy films, are easily digested (with some adjustments) by the same culture that finds itself horrified by the idea of two men holding hands in public.

Through a critique of the innate hypocrisy in these institutions, my work unmasks the mechanisms by which our unique identities are homogenized within our culture. At the same time it celebrates a demystified gay male desire. Drawn from life, my view cannot be readily divorced from the wellspring of that depiction.