by Edward Goldman
Art Critic, KCRW 89.9 FM
Excerpt:
“Another LA-based Latino artist, well-known photographer Ken Gonzales-Day, has a full-of-surprises museum-quality exhibition, Bone-Grass Boy, at Luis De Jesus Gallery. I’ve been following his career for quite a number of years, but I was not aware of this body of work, created almost 25 years ago. Many of Gonzales-Day’s photographic compositions are inspired by Old Master paintings, some with a particular reference to Caravaggio.
“Ken Gonzales-Day came out as a gay man at the height of the AIDS epidemic…” and most of the images in the exhibition portray the artist as female characters connected to his “…family tree that traces his family in the Americas back to the mid-16th century, and show lines of descent of Mexican, Native American, Aztec, and Spanish descendants” (Luis De Jesus Gallery).
Even today, with a much more accepting culture of sexuality, the content of his images comes across as undeniably challenging and provocative. Just imagine how they would have shocked museum or gallery visitors 25 years ago…
To read full article: HuffPost
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