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One of the things that I find very intriguing about both the Box and the Armor series, is that they all have this sense of emergence. It really reminds me of Michelangelo’s unfinished soldier series, there is a tension in the unfinished sculptures that is so visceral. It’s like they are fighting to break free of the marble. It’s interesting that you should bring that up,
You found your muse in the medium. Basically, I realized I could express a lot of differ-
ent stages of my gay life, personally. And therefore, could hopefully relate that to many other people. It’s sort of a universal path we have all followed: A feeling of isolation, adversity and conflict, all of those of things and then as we mature, hopefully, becoming healthier. (Laughs) Coming out does a lot for people and it is difficult to explain the experi- ence to someone who hasn’t lived this life…What pre-coming out and post-coming out is really like. I interviewed Dustin Lance Black recently and one of the things we discussed was around the coming out process. It’s unique to the LGBT community, because more-often-than-not, there is no guidance from a family standpoint, because they have no experience of it to share. We must seek out our “tribe” so to speak, for that support and connection. That’s true and once I hooked in to the idea of
using the box as a visual metaphor for the different stages throughout life—I should say my life, because I don’t want to speak universally for everyone—I realized that I could really express these things with this common object. That’s been the most fascinating part of this for me. The prop is the suggestion, but the emotion behind it is really the outcome. The models knew it, they got exactly what I was going for right away.
those works completely influenced the Armor series. I’m so happy that you see that. I teach a class in Florence every year and we study abroad at Accademia [Gallery] and the Armor series in particular, is influenced by a visit in 2009 when a Robert Mapplethorpe retrospective was in the temporary exhibit right next door to the main gallery. There was this wonderful juxtaposition of Michelangelo’s sculptures and Mapplethorpe’s photography. I came home and immediately made the first image from the Armor series in response to that experience. There was a fascinating retrospective at the Muse d’Orsay in Paris a while back called,Masculine/ Masculine, it was all about the male nude through history. I bring it up, because it was so fascinating to see the male nude placed in a historic con- text—there has never been a retrospective until the Leopold Museum in Vienna in the autumn of 2012—female nudes have been on display regularly, but not male. I find that truly amazing. Hunter O’Hanian, who wrote the forward for the
Box Series book, is a friend and colleague of mine and was the director for the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art for a number of years. He is the executive director now at The College Art Association and discusses in the forward his take, not only on my work, but the whole idea of the male nude throughout the history of art. For many, any male nudity is controversial. Seeing a penis, for many, crosses a line into something else, some people are truly horrified by it. I’ve watched the expressions of the people who page through my work and seen how intense their reactions can be. It would be a great study to do sometime. An anthropological or sociological study around what the predispositions are to seeing male genitalia, and what the reaction has been over the years. It’s all about context. The content of the magazine sets the context in which people view it.
The Box is available for pre-order
atamazon.com. To see much more of Amato’s work, go
toronamato.com. For more of this interview, go
toragemonthly.com.
28
RAGE monthly | MARCH 2017
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