Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century American Art

by Richard Meyer

From the U.S. Navy's 1934 confiscation of a painting of sailors on shore leave to contemporary culture wars over funding for the arts, conflicts surrounding homosexuality and creative freedom have shaped the history of modern art in America. Richard Meyer's Outlaws Representation tells the charged story of this strife through pioneering analysis of the works of gay artists and the circumstances under which these works have been attacked, suppressed, or censored outright. Focusing on the careers of Paul Cadmus, Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, David Wojnarowicz, Gran Fury, and Holly Hughes, Outlaw Representation explores how gay artists responded to the threat of censorship by producing their own "outlaw representations" of homosexuality. Instead of acquiescing to attacks on their work as indecent or obscene, these artists used the outlaw status of homosexuality to propose new forms of social, sexual, and creative life.

Genres: Art, History, Queer, Art History, LGBT, Nonfiction, Gay

392 pages, Paperback

First published January 17, 2002

Reviews

[Matthew Miranda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fastidiously engages the contentious relationship between art--visual/ performative -- and public reception in the format of case studies that center around male-male homoeroticism in 20th c. America and how these various forms of expression have been sublimated, expressed,and repressed by both institutional and cultural identities with special emphasis toward government funded projects. It studies canon artists with impressive investigative pedanticism that has rightfully put this text forth as a staple for not only its invaluable bibliography but also for its enduring legitimization of previously (and continuously) stigmatized bodies of work; or as Meyer would have it, "the value of unrespectability."

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book. Meyer's writing is clear and beautifully constructed and his analysis of individual works is insightful and spot on as is the analysis of the context in which these works were created. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the visual arts, gay or straight.

[J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great history of queer art and censorship. Academic, but easily digestible.

[Pamela Boswell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Indispensable for contemporary art lovers.