“REX uncensored” | Through 1st May | Amsterdam

QUESTION: Tom of Finland is perhaps your most famous contemporary working in the same field of pornographic art, and the artist you are most often compared with. Didn’t he also explore the unvarnished truth about male sexuality?

REX: Yes he did, but in a romanticized and idealized way. On that level it is much more profound and engaging on a more sensual level than my work. His intellectual approach to male sexuality is never mean or crass but positive and uplifting. Those are extremely difficult emotions to convey when springing from a purely sexual context. Tom studiously avoided portraying any degradation or demeaning situations in his work. In his era it was important to portray homosexuals as masculine Gods to lend self-esteem to homosexuals that they were being denied from the wider society. His drawings are suggestive of the Greco-Roman view of Men as Gods. I’m am only interested in portraying mortals being perceived as Gods in those moments of suspended disbelief that can happen when we are in the throes of sex.

Tom’s work has a more universal appeal with a generic quality which translates across all cultures where homosexuality exists. His work is timeless. Tom’s prototype is blond; mine is brunette. His men are absolutely clean and flawless, mine are imperfect and soiled. And finally, his medium was lead pencil which is soft and pliable, which lends his work a smooth satin finish. My medium is pen and ink which is hard and unyielding, incapable of half tones which give my Men a hard sharp edge. However, in psychological terms I would never attempt to cover the same mental territory he did. I work the other side of the street.

Published: 3rd April 2014

Categorised in: Events