“AllTogether” | Peter Berlin, Patrick Lee, Phuc Le, R. Daniel Foster, Rex and Rinaldo Hopf

AllTogether features artists from the Tom of Finland Foundation collections.

PETER BERLIN (B. 1942, German)
Peter Berlin (born Armin Hagen Freiherr von Hoyningen-Huene) is a photographer, artist, filmmaker, clothing designer, model, and Gay icon. Berlin started taking self-portraits of himself in the 1970s. By modifying his clothes, choosing various props and settings, and sometimes using double exposure to create a second image, Berlin would photograph himself in ways that created a hyper-sexualized, overtly masculine image. His two films, Nights in Black Leather (1973) and That Boy (1974), revolutionized homoerotic film by bringing Gay male erotic films artistic legitimacy.

He was named the 2015 Tom of Finland Foundation Cultural Icon and in 2021, he participated in Tom of Finland Foundation’s charitable auction Sexology 101. Although he retreated from the limelight in the 1980s, he continues to make videos of himself. Berlin lives and works in San Francisco, CA.

DIESEL Pride collection

DIESEL Pride collection

“At the time I sold photographs through a mail order business and sent some of those photographs to Tom to draw. In one of the drawings, I am standing under a street lamp, and it’s interesting to see his drawing compared to the original. While visiting Durk at TOM House, I looked through Tom’s binders and saw some sketches of my drawings. The very stylised images he drew were very much my cup of tea.” – PB

PATRICK LEE (B. 1969, American)
Patrick Lee is a portrait artist and photographer working mainly with pencil. In 1993, Lee was a winner of the Tom of Finland Emerging Artist Competition. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV; and Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH. Lee is the recipient of the Walter Gropius Master Artist Fellowship (2016), the Peter S. Reed Foundation Achievement Award (2006), and the Nikon 200 Grand Prize (2000). Lee lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

PHUC LE (B. 1985, Vietnamese/American)
Phuc Le works mainly with photography, utilizing analog and digital processes. Focusing on social structures, mainly human connections and relationships in his multi-faceted consciousness, Le makes chromogenic prints through a performative approach to portraiture. Though his work is ever-evolving in ideas and media-of-practice, he is presently fixated on technology concerning sub-communities, the collective formation of a New-American identity, and trending culture in mainstream and underground media. In 2018, he was a Tom of Finland Foundation Artist-in-Residence. Le lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

“I had such a wonderful experience at TOM House. This unique place is where Queers of different generations and creeds come together to feel a sense of community and history. I loved the conversations and interactions I had with so many different kinds of Queer people who flowed through the space. It’s such a special home, there’s nothing anywhere else like it.” – PL

R. DANIEL FOSTER (B. 1957, American)
R. Daniel Foster is a video artist and writer with visual work featured by Los Angeles’ art institutions such as LA Opera, Hammer Museum, and Center Theatre Group, as well as Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. His short films and documentaries have received nominations and awards, including Best Experimental Film for his short “Airborn” at the International Festival of Cinema and Technology.

“TOM House and the Foundation have remained relevant well into the 21st century–not an easy task. And that speaks to Tom’s enduring vision. ” – RDF

REX (B. 1947, American)
Over the past four decades, the artist has meticulously detailed pen-and-ink drawings that have delighted and outraged a worldwide audience with their homoerotic subject matter, sometimes sweet and sometimes raw. Rex began homoerotica in the 1960s. In 2016, Rex was inducted into the Tom of Finland Foundation Artist Hall of Fame. Rex lives and works in Amsterdam.

“Without Durk, the art on these walls, the books on these shelves, in fact this very building and the people gathered in it would not be here today were it not for his fierce determination in bringing his vision of a universal Gay aesthetic into reality. Without his unstinting dedication the entire Gay liberation movement of the 1970s would have lost a major cornerstone of its foundation and ongoing success. I, among many other artists exhibiting here today, and at all the previous Foundation art fairs, would not have had the opportunity to exhibit our work to a wider public without that dedication.” – Rex

RINALDO HOPF (B. 1955, German)
Rinaldo Hopf is an artist, curator, and editor. Hopf studied art, religious studies and ethnology in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany; San Francisco, CA; and Bremen, Germany from 1974 to 1981. Parallel to his artistic work, Hopf curates exhibitions and, together with the journalist Axel Schock, has been the editor of My Gay Eye—Mein Schwules Auge since 2003. In 2020, he was a Tom of Finland Foundation Artist-in-Residence. Hopf lives and works between Berlin and Freiburg, Germany, and Tuscany, Italy.

“TOM House is a temple dedicated to the god Phallus, who is relished without any shyness or shame, a cult that you can hardly escape. Even the large subtropical garden with its orange and banana trees is a Gay pleasure park with everything included. ” – RH

Discover more AllTogether artists

The exhibition tells the individual stories of the artists. At the same time, the exhibition locates parallels, interactions, and influences between Tom of Finland Foundation, Tom’s aesthetic impact, and the community of artists that have formed throughout the years around them…View

Published: 24th June 2022

Categorised in: Art Offering, Events