“TOM OF FINLAND: The Pleasure of Play” @ NYC’s Artists Space

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METRO SOURCE: Twenty-five years after his death, Tom of Finland (Touko Laaksonen, 1920–1991) is receiving his first comprehensive survey at NYC’s Artists Space. The exhibition includes more than 140 drawings, rarely seen gouaches from the 1940s, over 600 pages of collages, and his early childhood drawings.

“Tom of Finland: The Pleasure of Play” is being touted as the “first exhibition to examine, analyze and present the historic role that his art plays in addressing and transgressing stereotypes of gender, sexuality, race, class and power relations.” Tom, of course, is the iconic gay Finnish artist whose work brought a machismo to the representation of gay men.

Tom studied advertising in Helsinki, but was soon drafted to join the Finnish Army in its fight against the Soviet invasion. After the war, Laaksonen worked as art director at McCann Erickson, a job he quit in 1973 in order to commit himself fully to his art. His international career was jumpstarted in 1957 in LA through his ongoing contributions to Bob Mizer’s Physique Pictorial. Tom later entered into a friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe, whom he met in 1978 in San Francisco and who helped him in 1980 to realize his first gallery exhibition in New York. In the late ’70s, on one of his frequent visits to the US, he met Durk Dehner, with whom he founded the Tom of Finland Foundation in 1984, based in Echo Park, LA.

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“Tom of Finland: The Pleasure of Play” is running from June 14 to August 23 at New York’s Artists Space (38 Greene Street, 3rd Floor), Wednesdays–Sundays, 12–6pm. Founded in 1972 in Downtown New York, Artists Space has for four decades successfully contributed to changing the landscape for contemporary art – lending support to emerging artists and emerging ideas alike.

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12 COMMENTS

  1. Awesome art, it’s been a while since I seen one of his drawing. They are always a turn on to view.

  2. Awesome examples of a most talented man. Thank you for a peek into this mans amazing work of erotic drawings.

  3. I like the one were the 3 guys are outside the one were the guy is laying on his back getting feed cock and getting his sucked at the same time. to a cock sucker like myself that heaven.

  4. I was lucky enough to meet Touku and Durk several times through my long friendship with Bob Mizer. Shy at first meeting, he quickly warmed into an old friend. It is through a chance meeting that Durk and Touku became friends, otherwise much of his art, like his early examples, would have been lost. So much of our early history survived through a prescient few. Not only did Durk save Tom’S work, but that of Quaintance as well. George died of a heart attack in 1957 and his estate fell to his partner, Victor Garcia. Durk tracked him down years later and found his trove of sketches and scrapbooks in a Hollywood carport. Upon Victor’s death, they may well have been tossed as much of Bob Mizer’s was into dumpsters. Fortunately, in both cases Fate intervened.

    This NY exhibition is an expansion on the one we enjoyed here in LA this past Fall. This too will feature the work of Bob and Quaintance. Though Touku had studied art as a career choice, it was the inspiration of Quaintance that helped him to bring his private erotic art out of the shadows and which helped him on his personal journey to self discovery. It was Bob, who not only named Touku “Tom of Finland”, but launched his popular career. Quqintance’s painting “Dashing” was the cover of Bob’s first Physique Pictoral. All of these early illustrators inspired and helped each other.

    If you attend the NY exhibition above, remember it’s a two part one. The second part, “I’m a Cruiser” is at Artists Space Books and Talks location on Walker St.

    For more of all these pioneers artwork, visit Taschen publishers. Taschen has been an outstanding friend and collaborator with our community and it’s history with a constant stream of beautiful editions.

    For those in LA that would like to see more, Taschen has an excellent ongoing exhibition at their Gallery on Beverly Blvd, Jul 12 -Aug 31, of Quaintance. He only produced 55 oils and a large selection will be on exhibit. See their website.

    For those that like bios, Taschen has just published some new ones and on Jul 30, at Austere in LA, there will be a panel discussion with Durk, Diane Hanson (editor of the TO XXL volume and Val Hoover author of their book “TOF: the Life and Work of a Gay Hero”. It’s a chance to ask questions and meet Durk. Durk, along with Kake, were the muses for Tom’S leathermen. A living legend.

    Likewise, support these endeavors by joining the Tom of Finland Foundation here in Echo Park. Call their number. Sharp as were the phone and is usually gracious in his time. Tours of the house, a mini museum, includes the archive room. Los of monthly events too at the house or Faultline Bar.

    Learn more about our history and how we got here. Enjoy the exhibits.

  5. Oops: ‘Sharp will answer the phone…’

    The LA area is filled with gay history. Not far from TOF Foundation, the Mattachine Society was founded, the first gay activist group in the US. The Satyr bike club, the first in the US and the oldest continuous gay org in the US. The Black Cat Tavern, where the riots, 2 years before Stonewall, started to coalesce the national gay rights movement which exploded with Stnewall. The flyer that P.R.I.D.E. passed out to organize the protests not only was the source of that iconic word, but morphed into The Advocate. It was that early paper that spread from local bars, upstate to SF and then mailed across the nation that gave the gay community a unified voice and forum for the first time. When Stonewall broke, there was a national response that set in motion our current freedoms. My friend Bob Mizer helped break the obscenity laws, other local bars created case law so gays could congregate without raids. The “One” archives at USC special collections is the world’s largest repositron of gay history in the world. There are so many stories here and those that were there are passing away. Where you live has its own heroes and stories too…discover them and share. We are not breeders, so we are their friends,family and descendants. We owe them a debt to remember their sacrifices and struggles. We owe them to carry forward their goal of equality. We must remember where we have been and keep moving forward. Learn our history and help make new history. The torch is rapidly passing to a new generation that is largely ignorant of these struggles, but enjoys the fruits of this activism. Time to step up, learn and get more involved. Many boards I serve on are filled with mid-aged guys whose foundations serve the younger ones who often can’t be bothered. We need a renewed base. Please volunteer.

  6. I remember these from when I was in High School, it was the first Gay thing I had to look at and Jack Off To. These guys used to get me so hard and I’d cum so easy, the looks of these Men and there Huge Cocks, were just a Dream for me to come to me one day in 1972, when I and a Teacher got down and heavy in his Office. It was Wood Shop, and he showed me what men really do when they are attracted to each other, little did he know, I had been having sex since I was 6yrs old, and I was always the one to get it started every time. We were getting hot and heavy in the office and all of the sudden the lights went on in the open wood shop, it was the Janitor getting ready for the day’s cleaning. We jumped right at the windows to the office and closed the blinds got dressed and got out of there in a flash. We got together every week there after. He did teach me a lot of things I never knew happened between two Men, but I learned fast.

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