31st January – 1st February

Los Angeles’s freewheeling Paramount Ranch fair, which debuted last year on the eponymous film set in the Santa Monica Mountains during Art Los Angeles Contemporary, will return for a second round this year, and has revealed the exhibitors. The list is a cross-section of smaller galleries from the United State and further afield, among them Lulu of Mexico City, High Art of Paris, Maccarone of New York and What Pipeline of Detroit. The full list comprises over 50 galleries, up from 36 in 2014.

“It’s going to be a little big vague and mysterious, to be honest with you, because that’s the modus operandi,” said dealer Alex Freedman, who cofounded the fair.

Freedman founded the fair with her business partner Robbie Fitzpatrick (with whom she runs L.A.’s Freedman Fitzpatrick gallery), and the artists Liz Craft and Pentti Monkkonen.

“There were a lot of artists who would talk to us about work that they had only seen on Contemporary Art Daily, or generally on the Internet,” Freedman said. “They’re M.F.A. students or B.A. students who have a ton of debt and can’t really leave. They hadn’t seen a lot of these places.” (Admission is to the fair is just $5—cash only—and it’s free for students.)

Credit for the unusual venue goes to Craft and Monkkonen, who are married and found it while looking for places to take their children. Rather than a convention center, exhibitors install work out in the desert and in buildings that have been used for everything from John Wayne films to Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

“There was the joke in L.A.,” Freedman said, “that if you got two or three people [into your gallery] a week, you got a lot. That has substantially changed since that joke was made about 5 years ago, because the city is transforming constantly, but at the same time this is an opportunity which is not only about sales—it’s also just a lot about introducing work to collectors and to a lot of local artists.”

SELECTED EXHIBITORS
Artists Space
C O O L
Green Tea Gallery
Queer Thoughts
XYZ Collective
COMPLETE LIST

SELECTED OUTDOOR PROJECTS & PERFORMANCES
Liz Craft
Richard Hawkins and Friends
Pentti Monkkonen
P ’N’ P & Ruby Neri
Secret Circuit
Haegue Yang
COMPLETE LIST

BY ANDREW RUSSETH

Image courtesy David Kordansky Gallery

A new solo exhibit in Los Angeles displays the artist’s early erotic works

Lately, it seems there’s a new exhibit of Touko Laaksonen (a.k.a. Tom of Finland) works just about every few months (and the exhibit of his work with Bob Mizer in L.A. in 2013 received a lot of attention). Now the David Kordansky Gallery is exhibiting Early Work 1944 – 1972, which surveys the artist’s formative years across 15 works. The L.A. exhibit continues through March 7, and each work was selected in close collaboration with the Los Angeles-based Tom of Finland Foundation.

SEE THE COMPLETE ARTICLE BY OUT.COM EDITORS

For naming Tom of Finland Foundation
as one of the three designated charities
and donating to us a portion of the proceeds of
Los Angeles Leather Pride 2014

Exhibition at David Kordansky Gallery

Among the earliest works featured is a group of rare sketches from 1944 depicting clothed couples enjoying sensual trysts. The delicate fashion-illustrational style and the coifed hairstyles reflect the era, but the exposed and exaggerated genitalia, a burgeoning pre-steroid musculature, and most significantly, expressions of pride and playfulness signal Tom’s pioneering approach to sexuality. At the time, homosexuality was unequivocally taboo, if not illegal, and the dominant image of gay men was that of weakness, sickness, and effeteness. In a masterful 1947 gouache on view, Tom both flouts and acknowledges these prejudices with the depiction of a commanding, strong-jawed figure discreetly pleasuring his companion. The picture also displays an early fetish for leather and military garb, trappings Tom would adopt throughout his world as symbols of power and masculinity.

Continues on view through March 7, 2015.

17th January 2015
David Kordansky Gallery

Photos by Lorenzo Gomez

Hot2Touch82

After a bout of Sever Depression with psychotic symptoms, Donald Rizzo began creating kaleidoscopic vision of vibrant color in a unique style called “Ambiguous Delusions” depicting Gay life while asking are they fiction, fantasy or actuality.

TOM House
16th January 2015

Photos by Dusti Cunningham

In 2015 XR Brands will bring the erotic art of Tom of Finland to life in the form of Pleasure Tools, a complete collection of toys and gear for men bearing the brand of the late artist.

Pete Karalainen and the Pleasure Tools at TOM House

An intimate, yet heavily attended, launch party was held on Saturday, Jan. 10, at the Tom of Finland Foundation in January to celebrate the launch of brand and to celebrate the memory of the late artist.

The party drew the likes of adult industry buyers including distributors and retailers as well as the press, adult performers, Foundation members, staff, volunteers and even a couple of Hollywood rock stars. Frankie “Groovie Mann” Nardiello, singer of My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult was spotted among the crowd among others.

Attendees — who got to be the first people outside of the development teams to see the collection — were treated to drinks and hors d’oeuvres and a tour of the Foundation, which houses more than 100,000 images including more than 1,500 original works by Tom and more than 3,000 by other artists.

The Tom of Finland aesthetic is both immediately recognizable and leaves an impact on the viewer. Not only is Laaksonen’s style bold and eye catching, his subject matter contains images that are brazenly sexual.

The Foundation, which was cofounded by Laaksonen himself in 1984, was set up to not only preserve the legacy of his iconic works, but also that of other erotic artists as well. Today, thanks in large part to its members and supporters from all parts of the globe; it is the world’s largest repository of erotic art.

As S. R. Sharp, vice president of the Tom of Foundation, explained during a tour of the house, many gay artists in the middle of the AIDS crisis in the ’80s had their works destroyed by homophobic family members who didn’t respect the work of the deceased.

“After the AIDS crisis hit, the world lost a lot of great art, that is why the Tom of Finland Foundation opened its doors to other artists as well as Tom’s.” he explained. “We are very happy to be working with a company that fully understands The Foundation’s purpose and helping to further achieve it by allowing more people to enjoy Tom’s work and learn about gay history through the arts.”

Randy Alvstad, general manager of XR Brands, says he couldn’t be happier with the finished product and the evening was a perfect culmination of the hard work and hours put into the line over the course of the past year.

“We are incredibly proud of this line,” he said. “It was a pleasure to gather with our peers, top customers, and wholesalers and retailers from across the globe and celebrate the legacy of an art icon while debuting a line of products that we and the Tom of Finland Foundation worked long and hard to create together. Thank you to everyone who attended. We look forward to having Tom of Finland Pleasure Tools on store shelves around the world.”

Tom of Finland Pleasure Tools debuts with lubricants, restraints, insertables, cock & ball gear, nipple clamps and Kake’s cock, a suction-cup dong and the signature piece of the collection. Inspired directly from Tom’s most featured character, this dong was hand-sculpted by an artist to exactly replicate the famous image found throughout Tom’s portfolio of a man only known to the world as Kake.

It is available in a Collector’s Edition Gunmetal Grey made of high-end silicone as well as a lower-priced realistic flesh-tone made with dual density TPR technology. It’s truly an art piece and needs to be seen and felt in person to appreciate it. The Collector’s Edition comes in an art display case for maximum impact and is sure to grab the attention of anyone within eyesight.

XR Brands is already continuing to conduct product development with the creative team at the Tom of Finland Foundation with plans to add products that span all categories and are all based on ideas or things the members know Tom would want to see if he were still alive today.

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE BY BOOTS BRYANT