Marco Silombria "Dionysus in Love"
Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art
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The question “Does gay art exist?” can be such a puerile and daft one that is worth taking a closer look at it. So, does gay art really exist? Does being gay influence the character of your work? If the answer is “yes,” to what extent? There are those limp-wristed, wild-eyed guys who scream, with their drooping “r”s, rather piqued: “How dare he? I am an artist and that’s that. What has the fact that I fuck a man got to do with what I put on paper, on canvas, or on film?’ These are the same people that tell you they “love people, ” and surprise, surprise, the people they love are always male. Thank heavens there are others who are more open-minded about things, who have learned to deal with their anxieties and fears, and who can have a good laugh and reply like sweet, gentle little boys: “Of course gay art exists; of course being gay has influenced my work, my photos, my films and books; of course my restless yearning to look at, admire, and fuck men has led me to think of them and portray them with the clear conviction and feeling that I would not have had if I looked at, admired, and fucked ladies.” This is more or less how Marco Silombria, onetime ad-man, member of Fuori (the first Italian pro-gay movement), illustrator of the group’s magazine, and now a renowned and positive-thinking artist, puts it. Many examples of Silombria’s work have now been brought together in Dionysus in Love (Tutti i Santi), edited by Peter Wiermair, the former director of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Bologna. Wiermair has no fewer than four hundred exhibitions to his name, and his work as a writer, critic, essayist, and a host of other important things leaves us in no doubt that he is a genuine connoisseur. Here he has taken Silombria’s work, spread it out, sifted through it, and dissected it before carefully and poetically piecing it back together to produce this book. This is no simple celebratory, trumpet-blowing monograph. Rather than providing us with a picture, this is a tale about a tiny wood where lots of little naked and semi-naked boys meet, some secretive, others more explicit, with their cocks adorned with lush vegetation, protected with grape leaves, popping out of fruit, interwoven with sausages, or smeared with saucy spaghetti al dente. Here there are also portraits of friends (Enzo Cucco and Enzo Francone, Gianni Farinetti and Angelo Pezzana, and Aldo Busi among others). A tasteful and at once joyful series of “after” versions are also included, which imitate, mock, and pay tribute to Manet, Goya, and Michelangelo. Then there are can-can dancing angels and a wonderful series of fantastic condoms topped with Napoleon’s hat or Mickey Mouse ears, together with Dionysian and Orphic whimsies, vases, cocci, photographs, and digital prints on banners—and who has got it, if he can, flaunts it. Marco Silombria works from his studio in Via Garibaldi, a pedestrian street in the heart of Turin. This is the heart that beats and then stops, a heart that is forgotten and then suddenly surfaces again, either in the local news stories (cocaine doing the rounds) or headlining (Winter Olympic Games). He has a large space full of a series of cataloged work. Silombria is a plumpish man, always cheerful and never whining. He’s fun and optimistic—not one of the underdogs. I don’t think he ever has been. He is always game for a bit of fun, of which he’s proud, but never plays the fool.
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Schedule
from May 05, 2009 to June 27, 2009