New book: PaJaMa, George Platt Lynes, and the role of photography in constructing the worlds of queer Americans
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Thursday, November 21, 2024


New book: PaJaMa, George Platt Lynes, and the role of photography in constructing the worlds of queer Americans
George Platt Lynes, Demus. 1937. Gelatin silver print. 8 × 10 in. From the Collections of the Kinsey Institute, Indiana University. All rights reserved. © Estate of George Platt Lynes.



OAKLAND, CA.- Body Language is the first in-depth study of the extraordinary interplay between George Platt Lynes and PaJaMa (Paul Cadmus, Jared French, and Margaret Hoening French). Nick Mauss and Angela Miller offer timely readings of how their practices of staging, collaboration, and psychological enactment through the body arced across the boundaries of art and life, private and public worlds, anticipating contemporary social media. Using the camera not to capture, but to actively perform, they renounced photography’s conventional role as mirror of the real, energizing forms of world-making via a new social framing of the self.

"Body Language retrieves a visual archive of desire from the 1930s and 1940s that exceeds any simple binary of gay/straight, male/female, or individual/collective. Photographs by George Platt Lynes and PaJaMa encompass lavish pleasures and possibilities that can only be understood as 'queer'—as beautifully non-normative and knowingly performative. Nick Mauss and Angela Miller dedicate their book to a 'future history of art.' One can only hope that an art history of the future learns to be as loving and attentive to the queer visual past as Mauss and Miller. If it does, Body Language will be part of the reason why." —Richard Meyer, author of Master of the Two Left Feet: Morris Hirshfield Rediscovered

"This is an important work of new scholarship focused on the interwoven relationships and collaborative lives and works of George Platt Lynes and PaJaMa. Collaboration and coauthoring strategies have become even more central to many contemporary practices in staged photography, and so as we contend with both the precedents and limitations of generations past, Body Language provides a crucial historic reference point for a new, expansive world built by queer image-makers." —Paul Mpagi Sepuya, artist

"With their attentive readings that span photographs, intimate relationships, and archival materials, Mauss and Miller furnish fresh understandings of mid-twentieth-century collective artistic practices. Together they brilliantly chart the course for a new, collaborative, and queer art history—one that is as delightful as it is rigorous." —Julia Bryan-Wilson, author of Louise Nevelson's Sculpture: Drag, Color, Join, Face

"Fire Island—this thin strip of sand, thirty-two miles long, off the coast of Long Island—has been a place of play and a sanctuary for the queer community for decades. PaJaMa's and George Platt Lynes's pioneering photographic work captured the unique spirit of this place. This volume underlines the importance of safe spaces for the queer community to be free to express their identities and create shared experiences of intimacy." —Wolfgang Tillmans, artist

"This blazingly intelligent examination of photographer George Platt Lynes and the trio of painters whose complex collaborations through photography and queer performance were attributed to PaJaMa is filled with telling details and brings us new considerations of how these artists challenged older ideas of cisgender authorship, hierarchies, and identities. Read this volume and marvel at the wealth of interfiliated pathways in interpreting creative practices as forms of queer world-making." —Roxana Marcoci, David Dechman Senior Curator and Acting Chief Curator of Photography, Museum of Modern Art

Angela Miller is Professor of Art History and Archaeology at Washington University, St. Louis. She is the author of Arthur Osver: Urban Landscape, Abstraction, and the Mystique of Place (Chicago, 2018), American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural Identity (Pearson, 2008), and Empire of the Eye: Landscape Representation and American Cultural Politics, 1825-1875 (Cornell, 1993).

Nick Mauss is an artist based in New York. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2020), Whitney Museum of American Art (2018), Triennale di Milano and Torre Velasca, Milan (2018), Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Portugal (2017); and Bergen Kunsthall, Norway (2013), among others. His work is part of the permanent collections of MOMA NY; Whitney; MOCA LA; The Walker Art Center; The Hammer Museum; Princeton Art Museum; Long Museum, Shanghai; M+ Museum, Hong Kong; National Museum of Monaco, Princesse-Grace, Monaco and FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims. Mauss has written on the work of Lorraine O’Grady, Jochen Klein, Hanne Darboven, Madame Gres, Susan Cianciolo, Anne Theresa de Keersmaeker, and Ian White, among others. He is the author of Transmissions (Yale, 2020) and Nick Mauss: Intricate Others (Mousse, 2018).










Today's News

October 30, 2023

A giant of painting sheds new light on darkness

Her anxious approach to décor

'No Fear, No Shame, No Confusion': Andrea Büttner exhibits at K21

Yoko Ono and the women of Fluxus changed the rules in art and life

Matthew Perry, star of 'Friends,' dies at 54

Visit the library from the comfort of your own phone

Yankee fans can buy Mickey Mantle's childhood home. The price: $7.

Why has this 258-year-old mansion been left to fall apart?

'The Nightmare Before Christmas': A hit that initially unnerved Disney

How California became America's contemporary music capital

36 hours in Glasgow, Scotland

Overlooked no more: Adefunmi I, who introduced African Americans to Yoruba

Writing 'Maid' pulled Stephanie Land out of poverty. She's fine now, right?

New book: PaJaMa, George Platt Lynes, and the role of photography in constructing the worlds of queer Americans

Now open: Zarina Bhimji: Flagging it up at Fruitmarket

Giulia Andreani presents a cohesive body of new work at Collezione Maramotti

Third and final installment of 'Artists Choose Parrish' opens

PinkPantheress' music broke the internet. Up next? Everything else.

Review: Slow poses and clouds of white powder

Rock Brynner, son of Hollywood royalty who cut his own path, dies at 76

Back to the future: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden's theme and programme for 2024

Exhibition explores the numerous links between science and the arts

Last chance to see: Juraci Dórea's first solo show at Galeria Jaqueline Martins in Brussels

US debut of 'Korea In Color' exhibition at San Diego Museum of Art

Top Soccer Players in the World - 2023 Rankings

8 Habits That Help Football Players Stay Healthy

Why Black and White Is Timeless in Interior Design

Buy Flat Pack Storage Container From My Container Houses




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful