Rex (artist)
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REX | |
---|---|
Born | 1943 United States |
Died | March 2024 (aged 80-81) Amsterdam, Netherlands |
Known for | Drawing |
REX (1943 – March 2024) was an American visual artist and illustrator closely associated with gay
Early life and work
Abandoned at birth, his real name and exact birthday are unknown, but references indicate a date in the 1940s. Research by historian
Career before 1980
Disillusioned with commercial art, he dropped out for several years but re-emerged in the 1970s as one of the leading figures visualizing the fetish and S&M subculture in New York and later San Francisco. He was much influenced, he said, by his chance discovery of a probably bootleg magazine of the drawings of Tom of Finland, which "irrevocably changed his life." The depiction of men "having sex with men, passionately and enthusiastically" "spoke to him in a way no lover or anonymous stranger ever had."[5]
His distinctively styled black-and-white pen-and-ink drawings quickly became synonymous with an emerging S&M graphic idiom that, in addition to Tom of Finland, included
The elusiveness of all the artists was deliberate because explicit sexual art, particularly homosexual in subject, was illegal, framed in vague language and enforced via contradictory judgments before the Stonewall riots. He said "I signed myself REX because it was non-specific and untraceable in those days by the cops". Although explicit nudes aimed at gay men would become more permissible, the conservative and homophobic social culture of the era[according to whom?][citation needed] still meant that involvement with gay pornography could have serious consequences.
As a freelance artist, initially working for pornographic series of Rough Trade pulp books (1972) illustrated with 12 images for each story, he produced poster commissions for a number of leather shops and gay bars around the US. His most famous works from this period were created for the notorious and legendary New York sex club the Mineshaft. The three posters and T-shirts he created for the club were sold in the tens of thousands during the 13 years of the club's existence and featured in the film Cruising (night interiors were filmed elsewhere, but recreated the club's interiors and include REX posters). His illustrations reflected the sexual activities and extreme end of newly empowered pre-AIDS gay community and celebrated the gay bathhouse culture blatantly and without apology. Other commissions included the 1976 poster for the pioneering sex boutique the Pleasure Chest (a sex shop) which led to his work appearing on early covers for the fledgling S&M-orientated Drummer magazine in 1977 and to advertisements for a brand of poppers, BOLT, in 1980.[6] Commuting between New York and San Francisco, REX also produced posters, catalogues and calendars for The Trading Post, considered the first gay department store (1978 to 1981).
Later career
On July 1, 1981, REX opened his own gallery, Rexwerk, in his
When the
Standalone works
REX published three 8- by 11-inch, 36-page bound portfolios of his black-and-white ink drawings entitled Mannspielen
His series of 8- by 10-inch, 12-print unbound portfolios were entitled (chronologically) Rexwerk, Uncut, Undercover, Armageddon, Scorpio, Rexland, Legends and REX Sex-Freak Circus. The unbound format proved popular with buyers who had been frustrated by the need to dismantle the earlier bound book format collections to frame their favorite images. Rex's drawings, made over months, defy the throw-away nature of most pure pornography and are more akin to a
Reception and exhibitions
Robert Mapplethorpe knew REX and was attracted to his hard-core imagery relating to the Mineshaft. The photographer developed a photographic portfolio that reflected the same themes and, like REX, had strong links with the West Coast fetish scene (they both had work published by Drummer magazine editor Jack Fritscher). The photographer was more focused on Los Angeles whilst REX preferred San Francisco. His work secured an invitation in April 1978 from Robert Opel to have a one-man exhibit at his newly opened Fey Wey Gallery on Harrison Street in San Francisco. REX's hyper-masculine men of this period were best described by Jack Fritscher, who was also one of Mapplethorpe's lovers, who met REX in person for the first time at the opening:
Rex is artist of urban toilets, blue-collar hotels, filthy construction workers, greasy gas jockeys, muscled bikers, tattooed fighters, beautiful young homeless bums ... ex-cons, armpit-sweaty beautiful studs needing head – all these unshaved "lone wolves" in jockstraps, leather, boots, and torn tanktops ... who pay-per-night in sleaze-bag hotels where sailors, Marines, cops, and drifters lie back on stained mattresses, the smoke of their cigarettes drifting out the crack of their rooms, down to the toilet where the cracked urinal drips beer piss, and the graffiti-covered stall is drilled with gloryholes ...[9]
Like Mapplethorpe's pictures, any exhibition of such scenes, which also include imagery occasionally suggesting
Cultural impact and legacy
A hardcover book of fifty drawings (Rexwerk) was published in Paris in 1986 by Les Pirates Associes, a private press run by photographers Ralf Marsault and Heino Muller,
Notes
- ^ "REX has departed". Tom of Finland Foundation. 7 April 2024. Retrieved 8 April 2024.
- ^ "Bob Mizer Foundation mourns passing of groundbreaking fetish artist REX". Bob Mizer Foundation. 8 April 2024. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
- ^ Laird, Cynthia (2024-04-10). "Groundbreaking fetish artist Rex dies". Bay Area Reporter. Retrieved 2024-04-22.
- ^ Anacabe, p. [2].
- ISBN 9783867874229, pp. [3-4].
- ^ Tadvertisements reproduced in Anacabe, pp. [2] and [7].
- ^ Vol 1 – 1975 & Vol 2 – 1976
- ^ "Virtual Drummer Article: Rex Video Gallery: Corrupt Beyond Innocence". jackfritscher.com.
- ISBN 3867874220
- ^ Richard D. Mohr, "Gay Ideas: Outing and Other Controversies" (1994), discussed in 'America the Philosophical' by Carlin Romano. Romano relates how Mohr's scholarly book was rejected by a series of publishers, both commercial (including the publishers of Madonna's Sex book) and university presses, who objected to images of REX's being included.
- ^ Village Voice, April 7, 1998
- ^ Lenius, Steve (August 26, 2021). "Leather Life: LA&M Exhibits - Leather's Golden Era and Art of Rex | Lavender Magazine".
- ISBN 978-2906463004
- ISBN 978-1931160391
- ^ "Drawings by REX". unclecrickey.com.
- ^ Berlin, Gallery. "Gallery Facebook page". Facebook.
- ^ Berlin, PR. "promotors web resource page" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-09-10. Retrieved 2016-08-28.
- ^ "Home - Leather Hall of Fame". leatherhalloffame.com.
- ISBN 9798987009123.
External links