Work-Of-Art Porn Star Francois Sagat Offers Master Class At NYC Museum

First Terry Richardson chose Francois Sagat to be the subject of “activist art” by putting him in a American-flag-striped unitard and inking “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” on the gay-porn god’s shapely butt cheeks. Now that Sagat singlehandedly secured the repeal of the homophobic military measure, it’s time for the charismatic Frenchman with the surprisingly untrashy scalp tattoo to take on the world of high art.

That’s right, the 32-year-old is heading up “Another Man: A Master Class with François Sagat,” at the Museum of Arts and Design  November 19, part of a three-day retrospective that includes the U.S. premiere of a French television documentary on him. (Check out the bilingual trailer below.)


While it’s true Sagat has ventured into art territory before—with films like Bruce LaBruce’s LA Zombie and Christophe Honore’s Homme au bain, Man at Bath (both of which will screen at the museum)—it doesn’t seem like he’s quite ready to ascend to the pedestal of being a living, pornographic work of art: He tells Out, “I’m still overwhelmed that I’ve been invited.”

Best of all, perhaps, is that Sagat will be instructing attendees on… the art of being Sagat.

“I’m basically supposed to speak about my career and about porn, generally speaking, and porn through my life,” he says. “I’ll speak, maybe, about my childhood and all of my inspirations.”

If we don’t understand the subject matter, can we sign up for a private tutoring session?

NY Republicans Want To Block The Jesus AIDS Video From Public Display… Again

Last December, a bunch of Republican U.S. legislators joined forces with the Catholic League’s blowhard president William Donohue to get the Smithsonian Museum to censor part of their Hide/Seek queer art exhibition, all because of David Wojnarowicz’s video Fire In My Belly which showed ants crawling over a Jesus figurine for a whole 11 seconds.

Now that the show has moved to The Brooklyn Museum, New York state Republicans have started threatening to pull all the museum’s public funding calling Wojnarowicz’s work “sacrilegious,” “Christian bashing,” “a hate crime,” and “blatantly disrespectful and offensive to Christians during the holiday season.”
Even Bill Donohue has jumped into this deja vu scenario by saying that Wojnarowicz died by “self-inflicted” AIDS, something Donohue implies wouldn’t have happened if he had simply lived life according to Catholic doctrine. This is the same man who called Catholic child rape victims “gold diggers” and blamed gays for the Church’s molestation problem adding that the church has been unfairly singled out and scrutinized over the alleged rapes.

Maybe we can divert New York’s public art funds and pay Bill Donohue to deliver more of his anti-LGBT theatrics in the Brooklyn Museum. Viewers won’t be able to tell whether it’s real or just very passionate performance art. Either way, they’ll understand why the public needs queer art exhibitions in the face of Donohue and his elephantine friends

Artist Spotlight: Wes Hemphill: Last Part

Adam #1

Joe Mostly Recovered From the Accident, 2011 (study)

 

 Tell us more on this one.
The model, Joe M., was a student at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where Jack and I spend winters. He’d recently been in an accident, the nature of which I should leave to him to disclose. I thought this image conveyed something of his climbing out of that circumstance and of his natural beauty, which, as the viewer can see, remains intact

Hardly Boys: Still Waters (#511), 2010, a collaboration between Wes Hempel and Jack Balas

 

How About Now? (study)

Camping on Vermeer. Tell us more on this.
I was initially drawn to the Vermeer interior because of the extraordinary quality of light. But I’m also playing around with the contemporary painter George Deem’s campy idea of How to Paint a Vermeer (title of a book of his paintings). So the piece may be humorous on various levels. And yet I think there’s a poignancy lurking underneath that has to do with the portrait on the wall (the same person as a boy?) and the way the young man presents himself now.

Decision, 2011

So what is the decision here, and can you talk about the pre-Raphealite influences?
The female figures are taken from Maxfield Parrish’s 1912 illustration for the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. In the original story, the prince kisses Sleeping Beauty and awakens her from her trance. But this particular “prince” (our model Sye), having arrived late on the scene, seems to have trouble making up his mind what to do next. A decision seems to be in order, but it’s left to the viewer to imagine what is going through the young man’s mind as he squints into the distance, clenching his hands.

 

Artist Spotlight: Wes Hemphill: Part 3

Return (2007)

Sleepy Time, 2011

Song of Birds, 2005, a collaboration between Wes Hempel and Jack Balas

 

Spell, 2003

 Hempel: Another take on a Maxfield Parrish fairy tale, this time the 1912 Hearst Magazine cover illustration of the Snow White story. I’ve replaced the sleeping maiden with our model Toby.

 

Artist Spotlight: Wes Hemphill: Part 2

Magnolias, 2011

Hempel: A take on a painting by the same name by Venezuelan painter Pedro Centeno Vallenilla (born: Barcelona 1904, died: Caracas 1988). As part of my ongoing project of reenvisioning art history from a gay perspective, I’ve replaced the nude female in the original (lying on the branch to the left) with a nude male.

 

Farewell #5

Birthday, 2005, a collaboration between Wes Hempel and Jack Balas

 

 Can you tell us a little about working in collaboration with your partner, Jack Balas?
I usually work out my ideas fairly comprehensively before committing paint to canvas, but occasionally I run into problems. Living with another artist means I have someone to consult with, and Jack is often more inventive visually than I am and more adventurous when it comes to imagery. He can think spontaneously in spatial terms, which means he has a fuller visual vocabulary than I do. Sometimes his ideas are so good, it makes more sense for him to just take over the painting. The canvas then goes from my studio to his (we never work on a piece together in the same space), and I relinquish control to him, which I admit is scary. Almost always, though, I’m delighted with the end result.