A talk and interactive presentation from Dr Gary Everett exploring the work of iconic artist and pioneer of gay male culture, Tom of Finland
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TOM OF FINLAND (Finnish, 1920 – 1991), Tom's Finnish Tango, 1947, Gouache on paper, 11.38” x 8.13”, ToFF Permanent Collection #47.11, © 1947 Tom of Finland Foundation
Wednesday 7th September, 7.30pm
Tickets: £4-£8, available via the link below
The Museum of Sex Objects is delighted to present a talk by Dr Gary Everett. Gary is the UK producer and curator of the Tom of Finland Foundation Los Angeles.
He has co-curated various exhibitions across Europe, including the year-long major Tom of Finland Retrospective, part of the official programme for Turku’s European Capital of Culture in 2011, the city of Tom’s birth, which then toured to Kulturhuset Stockholm in 2012.
In this talk he will be exploring the late artist’s work within the context of wider shifts in queer culture. This is one of a series of events exploring sexual cultures programmed by The Museum of Sex Objects to coincide with their month-long exhibition at The Horse Hospital this September.
From early works on paper, rare photographs, rare unseen artworks, archival materials and documentation of latter-day fashion shoots and illustrations Walk Like A Man will move through Tom of Finland’s practice to examine the cultural phenomena of blurring of gender, the feminisation of ‘male’ fashion and the re-emergence of ‘hero’ worship, ‘idealised’ heterosexual ‘butch’ lifestyles, and contemporary fashions in gay subcultures and the latter-day renaissance of the underground ‘Daddy’ subculture.
The presentation will explore the cultural significance and phenomenon of his work and how his style has been a dominant feature and influence on not only gay image and identity but the diverse underground countercultures such as the different ‘scenes’ with their uniquely, diverse and divided worlds such as leather, uniform, clones, fetish, butch, gender-queer, camp, drag, and androgynous ‘queens’ exploring the current provocative and the aesthetics evidenced across contemporary queer identity in fashion, art, music, live art and performance.
Dr Gary Everett is a creative producer, cultural activist and curator. Working in theatre and live arts since 1992. In 2003 he founded the highly esteemed international arts and heritage organisation Homotopia and was its Artistic Director for 18 years. Gary works extensively internationally with projects in Finland, Denmark, Poland, Latvia, Germany, Sweden and Turkey. In 2013 he curated and co-produced the ground-breaking exhibition, April Ashley, Portrait of a Lady at Museum of Liverpool - the first ever exhibition on trans lives in a national museum attracting over 950,000 visitors and extended twice due to popularity.
Gary also co-produced and initiated the recent UK premiere of Daniel Lismore’s exhibition ‘Be Yourself Everyone Else Is Taken’ at The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum commissioned in partnership with Coventry UK City of Culture 2021-2022.
Gary is currently developing new immersive, outdoor projects exploring overlooked, marginalised and erased queer history, plus writing and researching art, health and wellbeing and youth LGBT cultural/art education in Merseyside.
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