Two Men Kissing: A Photo Celebration of Gay Pride
In the aftermath of the senseless killings in Orlando, Florida, a hashtag began trending on social media: #TwoMenKissing. It was a reference to an interview where the shooter’s father suggested his son’s motivation was homophobia, recalling an incident where his son had become enraged by the sight of two men kissing. In response, everyday men across the country took to their social media channels to post pictures and selfies kissing friends, lovers, strangers. They were all following in the footsteps of generations of gay photographers, everyone from Robert Mapplethorpe to Alasdair McLellan to more obscure names like Alvin Baltrop, who insisted through the years in recording same-sex affection – to affirm their existence in a world that denied their sexuality, to record their own history, or simply to exalt, to use a phrase from modern parlance, the idea that “love is love.” Here, to coincide with gay pride month, is a selection of images from a variety of sources – the new Mapplethorpe retrospective at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, an exhibit on 1970’s queer culture which was at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, Tom Bianchi’s celebrated monograph on the Fire Island Pines – that together celebrate a simple but powerful image: #TwoMenKissing.
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Robert Mapplethorpe’ “Two Men Dancing,” 1984.
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“Ken Moody and Robert Sherman,” 1984. Currently on view at “Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium,” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
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“Robert Mapplethorpe and Samuel Wagstaff Jr.,” by Francesco Scavullo, 1974. Now on view at “The 1970s: The Blossoming of a Queer Enlightenment,” at the Leslie-Lohman Museum in New York.
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“Marcel and Eric Milan,” 1974, on view at “Antonio Lopez: Future Funk Fashion” at El Museo del Barrio in New York.
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Rink Foto’s “Lovers in a 1951 Mercury,” now on view at “The 1970s: The Blossoming of a Queer Enlightenment,” at the Leslie-Lohman Museum in New York.
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