Attila Richard Lukacs
29 Apr - 25 Jun 2011
ATTILA RICHARD LUKACS
Polaroids
29 April - 25 June, 2011
The exhibition Polaroids by Attila Richard Lukacs displays pictures that for the most part were created in Berlin where the artist lived from 1986 until his move to New York in 1996. His participation at Documenta IX in 1992 certainly marked a highlight of these years. The polaroids show young men with tattoos, shaved heads and sometimes props or attributes that suggest for them to be members of a gay skinhead scene. The poses of the pictured models range from classic portrait postures and the figure repertoire of Goya or Caravaggio to explicit pornographic poses. The polaroids were initially conceived as preparatory studies for paintings. They rank in the tradition of early representatives of homoerotic photography, such as Wilhelm von Gloeden’s work, that mostly referred to the esthetic canon from Greek Classic art to Neo-Classicism. Lukacs plays with violence and danger as part of the erotic game that no later than Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s or Pasolini’s tragic ends have become part of the iconography of homoerotic depictions. Lukacs Polaroids were introduced by his good friend, the Canadian artist Michael Morris as an independent body of work. Attila Richard Lukacs (*1962, Calgary, Canada) studied at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, the city where he lives and works today.
Polaroids
29 April - 25 June, 2011
The exhibition Polaroids by Attila Richard Lukacs displays pictures that for the most part were created in Berlin where the artist lived from 1986 until his move to New York in 1996. His participation at Documenta IX in 1992 certainly marked a highlight of these years. The polaroids show young men with tattoos, shaved heads and sometimes props or attributes that suggest for them to be members of a gay skinhead scene. The poses of the pictured models range from classic portrait postures and the figure repertoire of Goya or Caravaggio to explicit pornographic poses. The polaroids were initially conceived as preparatory studies for paintings. They rank in the tradition of early representatives of homoerotic photography, such as Wilhelm von Gloeden’s work, that mostly referred to the esthetic canon from Greek Classic art to Neo-Classicism. Lukacs plays with violence and danger as part of the erotic game that no later than Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s or Pasolini’s tragic ends have become part of the iconography of homoerotic depictions. Lukacs Polaroids were introduced by his good friend, the Canadian artist Michael Morris as an independent body of work. Attila Richard Lukacs (*1962, Calgary, Canada) studied at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, the city where he lives and works today.