Tom of Finland Foundation Awards 2020

ARTIST HALL OF FAME

FOR ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENTS AND STEADFAST COMMITMENT TO THE ART AND CULTURE OF OUR COMMUNITY

Bruce LaBruce is a filmmaker, photographer, writer, and artist based in Toronto but working internationally. Along with a number of short films, he has written and directed eleven feature films, including Gerontophilia, which won the Grand Prix at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema in Montreal in 2013. As a photographer he has had numerous gallery shows around the world, including a photo exhibit called
Obscenity at La Fresh Gallery in Madrid which caused a national ruckus in Spain. His feature film L.A. Zombie premiered in competition at the Locarno film festival in 2010 and was subsequently banned in Australia.

LaBruce has contributed to a variety of international magazines, newspapers and websites as both a writer and photographer, including index magazine, for which he also acted as a contributing editor, Vice, The National Post, The Guardian UK, Honcho, Purple Fashion, Numero, Dazed and Confused, Tank, BlackBook, Bon, Fantastic Man, Man About Town, and many others.

LaBruce has had a number of notable film retrospectives, including one at the TIFF/Bell Lighthouse under the auspices of the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014, and one at MoMA in New York in 2015. His latest feature, Saint-Narcisse, is currently on the festival circuit and will be released internationally in 2021. His new photography book, Death Book, is now available from Baron Book. A new book of his photography called Fixations will be out early next year from Milos Mestas Editions.

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LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

FOR LEADERSHIP AND STEADFAST COMMITMENT TO THE ART AND CULTURE OF OUR COMMUNITY

Annie Sprinkle has made work about her sexual adventures and discoveries for almost five decades. She began with a career in adult films in 1973 when she was 18. After doing just about every kind of sex work there was for 22 years, she bridged into performance art, theater, post-porn filmmaking, and radical sex education.

Sprinkle has published five books, and has a new one coming in spring 2021, Assuming the Ecosexual Position—Earth as Lover, with University of Minnesota Press. Her last film, Water Makes Us Wet is about the pleasures and politics of water. It screened in festivals and at museums in many countries, including at MoMA in NY. Annie has collaborated with her life partner, artist Beth Stephens for the past 19 years. They are the founders of the ecosex movement and do multi-media projects making environmental activism more sexy and queer. The partners were official documenta 14 artists, Germany’s once every five year exhibition of contemporary art, which was Sprinkles’s dream “cum” true. Sprinkle is based in San Francisco and thinks masks are sexy: She will get the covid vaccine when its safe and available.

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CULTURAL ICON AWARD

FOR ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT AND IMMEASURABLE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ART AND CULTURE OF OUR COMMUNITY

Dan Savage has written the internationally syndicated sex-advice column “Savage Love” for almost thirty years. He is the author of more than six books and an LGBT activist. With his husband Terry Miller, Dan founded the It Gets Better Project in 2010 to deliver messages of hope to LGBT youth as well as practical advice from LGBT adults. Through his column and podcast, Dan raised more than $300,000 dollars for the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, and the International Refugee Assistance Project to combat Donald Trump’s agenda. He is a tireless advocate for queer people, queer artists, and queer families.

Savage has opposed laws restricting pornography and the sale of sex toys and has been featured on numerous television programs and news outlets.

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