“TOM OF FINLAND Made in Germany”

12th September 2020, 11:00 am

Date/Time
Date(s) - 12th Sep 2020 - 19th Dec 2020
11:00 am - 6:00 pm

Location
Galerie Judin

Categories


Tuesday – Saturday or by appointment

 

 

 

UPDATE 14th DECEMBER: The gallery has had to close for the next COVID lockdown in Germany (five days before the exhibition was scheduled to end). Even still, a record breaking number were able to visit during the run. You are invited to purchase a catalogue (below) as a way to view this handsome show. INQUIRIES

TOM OF FINLAND Untitled, 1974, Graphite on paper, ©1974-2020 Tom of Finland Foundation Commissioned by Harald Tangermann and Peter Daun for Toms Saloon in Berlin

 

Tom’s first ever exhibition was in Hamburg in 1976 and he did many commissions for German clients. The gallery has  recreated this first show and devoted a publication to these seminal years.

Through his iconic drawings, Tom of Finland almost single-handedly changed the way Gay men were perceived by society, and – maybe even more importantly – how Gay men perceived themselves. The artist, who died in 1991, would have turned 100 this year.

“Producing this book was an absolute inevitability, triggered by the research we had undertaken for what started out as a modest exhibition about Tom of Finland’s early collectors and companions. Little did we know that the wealth of information that we would gather from many of the key figures of those crucial years would enable us to rewrite the story of the birth of an artist.” -Juerg Judin and Pay Matthis Karstens⁠⠀
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Tom of Finland: Made in Germany, edited by Juerg Judin and Pay Matthis Karstens, Milan: Skira Editore 2020. ⁠ ⁠⠀

PURCHASE THE CATALOGUE

 

1976, 2020 – Tom back in Germany

Ris­ing to fame under the pseudonym Tom of Fin­land, Touko Laakso­nen (1920—1991) is per­haps the most famous and influ­en­tial Finnish artist of the 20th century. His iconic depic­tion of proud and life-affirm­ing gay­ness pro­vided deci­sive impulses for the interna­tional gay move­ments from the 1960s onwards. But although we instinc­tively asso­ciate his sensu­ous por­tray­als of self-confi­dent… View Article

Tom of Finland in “King Kong Garçon”

  Features interviews with Galerie Judin and Tom of Finland Foundation in honor of #TOMs100 and the recreation of Tom’s first solo show in 1976 that opens later this year in Berlin.  

 

SEE PHOTOS FROM THE OPENING

Tom of Finland | Made in Germany | Galerie Judin | 12.09.-19.12.2020

Tom of Finland – Made in Germany

…Tom’s draw­ings − that had largely been regarded as mere reproduc­tion mate­r­ial − began their triumphal march around the globe as works of art. If, today, we under­stand Tom of Fin­land as an artist rather than as a commer­cial illus­trator with a pen­chant for pornog­ra­phy, then this appre­cia­tion, too, is Made in Ger­many.

Tom of Finland invented gay imagery

Sailors, lumberjacks, policemen, cowboys, motorcyclists. 100 years after his birth, the artist who most influenced gay culture in the twentieth century. In 1976 the unlikely happened: two fans, owners of a pornographic shop in Hamburg – the Revolt Press Bookstore – organize Tom’s first show. It is not pornography, now it is art. An exhibition… View Article

PHOTOS BY HENNING VON BERG

 

Published: 12th September 2020

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