Gallery exhibit explores suppressed gay culture

Artists Garth Amundson and Pierre Gour explore how historical photos suppressed queer culture in an exhibit that begins Thursday, Aug. 9, at the University of Idaho Prichard Art Gallery.

In several of the exhibit’s installations, Amundson and Gour manipulate vintage photos by removing subjects’ faces or eyes. They invite viewers to project themselves into the images to consider their own gender construction. In another installation, the artists combine portraits of two men, with one turned on his head, to disrupt conventions and consider what historical photography omits.

“Studio portraits and commercial images, with their cleanliness and idyllic conventions, present a likeness of ourselves as we wish to be seen, flattening away the murkiness of life,” said Roger Rowley, Prichard Art Gallery director. “Garth and Pierre use the lens of their current moment and circumstances to imagine what other ideas might be teased from these photos.”

The exhibit, “Whipping It Up: A Collaborative Alchemy,” runs Aug. 9 through Oct. 6, 2018, at U of I’s Prichard Art Gallery. An artist lecture, free and open to the public, is 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 23, in TLC 040 on U of I’s Moscow campus. An opening reception is from 5-7 p.m., Friday, Aug. 24, at the gallery.

A 64-page hardcover exhibition catalog that accompanies the exhibit was made possible with support from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation.