Gay sex art photos
In the meantime, the pictures had been included in exhibitions at MOCA, Los Angeles, and SFMOMA, San Francisco. The publication was successful and had a wide circulation back then, but once it went out of print, it became a rarity, until a second edition was released in 2015.
#Gay sex art photos series#
The resulting series of photographs is often witty, with a subtle irony coming from the contrast between the erotically charged nature of the pictures and the clinical style of the captions, reminiscent of a medical book.Īfter describing in great detail the meaning of a red handkerchief, the author feels the need to warn his readers that “red handkerchiefs are also employed in the treatment of nasal discharge and in some cases may have no significance in regard to sexual contact.”įischer’s self-described “Jewish humor” involves a good dose of self-criticism, and critique of the very methodologies of semiotics itself, which by the late 1970s, had been well embraced by artists and academics.įischer’s pictures were first exhibited in San Francisco’s Lawson de Celle Gallery in 1977, and then published by NFS Press the following year, in a book titled Gay Semiotics. Signs for availability simply do not exist. The wedding ring, engagement ring, lavaliere, or pin are signifiers for non-availability which are always attached to women. Traditionally western societies have utilized signifiers for non-accessibility. Combining images with text and captions printed into the photographs, Fisher consciously employed semiotics (the study of signs and symbols) to deconstruct some of the codes used by the San Francisco gay community to find and select sexual partners: In February 1977, Fisher started to work on a series of black and white photographs documenting the “signaling devices found in the gay community”, as he later described his research. Men with colored hankies in their jeans pockets could be spotted in numerous gay clubs and in the streets of major urban areas.Īround that time, Hal Fischer, who had moved from Chicago to San Francisco to study photography and was getting involved in art criticism, was experiencing the vibrant gay community of the Castro and Haight-Ashbury districts.
#Gay sex art photos code#
The hanky code discovered by this fictional officer was in a fact widely used in the US during the 1970s by gay men looking for casual sex. The yellow one: left side means you give golden shower right side you receive.”
The green one: left side says you’re a hustler right side you’re a buyer. The obviously bored reply is a very detailed one: “A light blue hanky in your left back pocket means you want a blow job right pocket means you give one. Puzzled by a display of colored handkerchiefs, he asks a sales assistant what they are for.
#Gay sex art photos movie#
LONDON - In a scene of William Friedkin’s movie Cruising (1980) Al Pacino, who plays a straight New York officer who is under cover to investigate a series of murders linked to the gay S&M scene, goes in a sex shop.
Hal Fischer, “Leather Apparel” from Gay Semiotics (1977, printed 2014) carbon pigment print, 24 prints in handmade case with denim covering, each print: 20 x 16 inches (50.80 x 40.64 cm) (All images courtesy the artist and Project Native Informant)