“Expression, sexuality and individualism”: Diesel exhibition is a trip into the homoerotic world of Tom of Finland

In Tokyo’s Shibuya district, fashion label Diesel hosts an exhibition celebrating Queer artist Tom of Finland, including a VR trip to TOM House in Los Angeles and a capsule collection adorned with erotic illustrations

Forty Years of Pride at the Diesel Art Gallery in Tokyo

Tom of Finland’s libidinally charged illustrations of muscled-up men in various states of embrace – and often clad in skin-tight leather or denim – have seen the Finnish artist become one of Queer art’s most distinctive voices. First appearing in publications like Bob Mizer’s Physique Pictorial in the 1950s, his stylised drawings would – as his eponymous Los Angeles-based Foundation describes – “fuel both the sexual fantasies and the aesthetics of gay men”.

Glenn Martens, the Belgian creative director of Italian fashion label Diesel, has forged a deep-rooted relationship with Tom of Finland Foundation and its president Durk Dehner, a friend and lover of Tom, who set up the Foundation with him in 1984 (the artist would die in 1991, with Dehner becoming the guardian of his legacy). “[His work] seemed to affect me in a way that art never had before, an emotional way,” Dehner told Wallpaper* on the occasion of Diesel’s AllTogether exhibition in Venice in 2022, which combined Tom of Finland’s illustrations with the work of other erotic artists. “There was something in it that made it feel like he had done these pictures for us, for Gay boys. That was important in a world where nothing felt like it was made for you,” he said.

Diesel takes Tom of Finland to Tokyo

A portrait of Tom of Finland

Now, a new exhibition of Tom of Finland’s work is being hosted in the Diesel Art Gallery in Tokyo, part of the brand’s vast flagship store in the buzzing Shibuya district. Titled Forty Years of Pride, the display marks a rare opportunity to see Tom of Finland exhibited in Japan and features the artist’s works both in colour and black and white, some of which are for sale. The former includes the bright red of a Santa costume (worn by a typically gleaming Adonis with just a Christmas stocking for modesty); the latter, men in wipe-clean black leather boots and chaps. Diesel says the exhibition “amplifies the message of freedom of expression, sexuality and individualism” at the heart of Tom of Finland’s oeuvre.

Alongside the show, there is a VR experience that allows viewers to be transported to TOM House, the artist’s former Los Angeles residence which now serves as a community hub and gallery space, alongside hosting artists-in-residence who explore erotic themes in their practices. “Present-day artists are inspired by the generation before, they feed off each other,” Dehner previously told Wallpaper*. “At the Foundation, we promote the present and future, and protect the past. That’s really what creates community and family, because family isn’t just who’s alive today – it’s where you come from, all the people came before.”

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Published: 1st August 2024

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