Hensley v. State Commission on Judicial Conduct, a Texas case now moving through federal courts, is a deliberate attempt to drag Obergefell v. Hodges back before the Supreme Court and destroy it. Obergefell, the 2015 decision recognizing same-sex marriage, remains the law. Meanwhile, organized and well-funded groups are building long-term legal and political campaigns to eradicate it and strip gay Americans of rights they have already won.
The machinery is already in place. More than two dozen states have trigger laws ready to gut marriage equality the moment Obergefell falls. The federal Respect for Marriage Act protects existing marriages, but only in part, leaving millions of families exposed.
The Work
This collage places vintage physique photography alongside a contemporary group of young men in matching green shirts. A seated nude holds grapes, a reference to Bacchus, the classical god of wine and pleasure. Two reclining men take the pose of the odalisque, historically reserved for women.
Pastel mountains set the scene in an open, imagined world. A Blue Moon represents longing and desire, with the Jupiter 3 signifying freedom and escape from persecution.
The Bob Mizer Connection
Two figures in this collage come from the tradition of Bob Mizer's studio, the Athletic Model Guild, founded in Los Angeles in 1945. His magazine, Physique Pictorial, launched in 1951 and served athletic enthusiasts, straight and gay, interested in building their own bodies. It also met the emotional needs of gay men when openly gay publications were not allowed. It filled both roles at once.
The central image, a young man offering grapes to a reclining figure, draws directly on the fine art tradition. The grape-bearing youth recalls Caravaggio's Bacchus, and the reclining figure recalls Titian's Venus of Urbino, the model for the reclining nude later known as the odalisque. With a camera, Mizer placed the male body within the same tradition that museums, catalogs, art history books, television shows, and advertising all openly celebrate.
Still, Mizer paid a price, convicted in 1954 of mailing obscene material. The Supreme Court subsequently ruled in 1962, in MANual Enterprises v. Day, that male physique magazines were not, in fact, obscene. The images could finally be seen for what they were: studies of the male form, a subject with a long and celebrated tradition in art. They were, in fact, art.
Past and Present Together
The physique models represent an era when desire between men was subtext, never context. The young men in the background represent the present, where camaraderie and affection between men can be shown openly without penalty.
Rights that were won can be contested again. This piece stands as a record of gay history and a celebration of gay life today.
— Behan
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