Luke Turner looks at the art of Tom of Finland and Beryl Cook through the bisexual gaze. Our society has, historically, forced the bisexual to peer out of a closet of loneliness, frustrated desire, and taboo, creating lurid stereotypes that we're oversexed, rapacious. Therefore, the outré bawdiness in the work in this exhibition has a curious, specific appeal to the bisexual eye that roves and wanders one step removed from hetero conventionality and queer liberation.
This event forms part of our Saturday Talks series, in which artists, curators and writers lead personal responses to Beryl Cook / Tom of Finland. These talks, readings and performances are an opportunity to explore specific aspects of the exhibition, from 'bad taste' to class tourism, masculinity and sexuality in the military, and London's lost queer spaces.
