MEN ARE ANIMALS

an art exhibition

WARNING: SENSITIVE CONTENT 18+ ONLY

CURATOR’S STATEMENT

MEN ARE ANIMALS is a declarative statement, meaning we’re discussing matters of fact around here.

This show is asking artists what they think about this phrase, how that manifests in their work, and how they want to respond.

It asks for a perspective: if men are animals, are we sympathetic or hostile to them? Are they cute and cuddly? Domesticated? Feral? Imaginary?

Are they castrated or in heat? Hunted or hunting? Are we trusting them? Training them? Ignoring them? Or eating them? Or do they eat us in the end?

What do we know about animals? What do we know about men?
Joshua Cook
Curator

PRESS FOR THE JAN 2024 EXHIBITION AT 11:ELEVEN GALLERY IN DC

MEN ARE ANIMALS and More Best Bets for Jan. 11–17

An 18 and up queer art show at 11:Eleven, Okan in D.C., How to Be a Korean Woman ends its run at Theater J, and 1997’s murder mystery Cure screens at Alamo.

There’s no doubt that art can be sexy, but most galleries don’t come with an “adults only” warning. Not so for MEN ARE ANIMALS, a pop-up event taking place at 11:Eleven gallery this weekend that’s exclusively for viewers over the age of 18. Curator Joshua Cook selected a mix of queer DMV and national artists, some of whom he’s worked with at erotic art-making events. Though there’s plenty of work from a queer or sexual lens, the focus is on the theme of the exhibit’s title. If humans are mere animals, are they carnal or innocent, domesticated or wild, more in touch with the world or oblivious to it? Some highlights include a rabbit-infused photo series from Maryland-based boudoir photographer Ronjhay Bowser, skeletal “bone men” mixed-media pieces from D.C. artist Aiden Paddlety, photographer Jeanette Spicer’s photographs that explore the lesbian gaze, and inventive sculptures and custom jewelry by Kayla Rodriguez. Most works are for sale, and interested buyers can DM @men.are.animals on Instagram to come to a collector’s preview Friday night from 4 to 6 p.m.; an opening reception, open to the public, follows. Saturday evening (long after when galleries typically close up for the night) will be packed with sexy supplemental activities. A preview of the yet-to-be-completed documentary RIDE: A Queer Kink Adventure will be shown, created by artist Patrick McNaughton and following his journey through kink and fetish communities following the end of a long-term relationship. The film is seeking further funding and will explore the history of the kink and fetish scene, and challenge the preconceptions of who participates in those circles. Things will get even steamier when McNaughton’s erotic art organization dandyland.art demonstrates some live nude body painting, and clothing pop-up Blame Daddy will have some slightly naughty looks for sale. MEN ARE ANIMALS runs Jan. 12, from 6-8 p.m.; Jan. 13 from noon to 9 p.m.; and Jan. 14 from noon to 5 p.m. at 11:Eleven gallery, 10 Florida Ave. NW. menareanimals.gallery. Free.
—Stephanie Rudig, Washington City Paper, Jan 11, 2024

THE COLLECTION

SECTION 1

Jeanette Spicer, New York City-based visual artist; co-editor of dyke publication, WMN, showcasing art and poetry by marginalized communities of lesbians; featured in collections at the Guggenheim Museum and Museum of Modern Art Library.

Title: sara shaving my vulva
Description: This series emerged from a desire to acknowledge and do something about the absence of lesbian photographers, the lesbian gaze, and reorient the dominant male gaze that traditionally inform our ideas of the femme presenting bodies, intimacy and sex.
Material: archival photograph, unframed
Date: 2023
Size: 17″ x 24″

Title: lyndsey preps the coffee
Description: Historically, interiors have represented isolation and confinement for women. However, the interiors in my work represent independence and a reclaiming of ownership.
Material: archival photograph, unframed
Date: 2023
Size: 17″ x 24″

Title: sara at home
Description: I photograph the ‘female’ presenting body in these ways to show that these bodies are much more than the desire of men as we have been trained to understand. In my images the body is a place of complexity, detail, a source point of intimacy, of another’s touch, a site of action, play, trauma, power and vulnerability. Many lesbian images are documentary in style, so instead I construct my images and create in-camera “collages” of bodies and other objects within a space as a new way of seeing.
Material: archival photograph, unframed
Date: 2022
Size: 17″ x 24″

Title: in the tent
Description: My exteriors, sometimes shot in gay male cruising sites, offer an opportunity to also explore these sexual playgrounds dominated by men to consider why women, and other folks don’t have these spaces.
Materials: archival photograph, unframed
Date: 2022
Size: 17″ x 24″

SECTION 2

Kyle Quinn, New York City-based painter and sculpturist; founder of Raw Meat Publishing whose comprehensive artist book archive is included in the Museum of Modern Art Library; solo show at Alchemy Gallery in July 2023 in New York City.

Title: Windowsill
Description: Signed on the back of panel.
Materials: Graphite, Latex and Acrylic on Birch Panel.
Date: 2023
Size: 14” x 14” x 1.58”

Title: Snakeskin
Description: Signed on back of panel.
Materials: Casting Resin, Acid & Powder Pigments, Pen, Paper, and India ink on Birch Panel.
Date: 2022
Size: 8” x 10” x 2.5”

Title: Intimate Objects
Description: Part of the artist’s on-going series of “spilled” objects. All Popper’s bottles are used by strangers the artist has had sex with, then the artwork is casted and sealed. Signed on the back of Birch Panel.
Materials: Casting Resin, Acid & Powder Pigments, Amyl Nitrate, Paper and India ink
on Birch Panel.
Date: 2022
Size: 8” x 10” x 2.5”

Ronjhay Bowser, Abingdon, Maryland-based boudoir and nude photographer; uses his art to empower individuals by encouraging body acceptance, fostering confidence, and exploring sexuality and seduction.

Title: Frisky Bunny
Material: archival photograph, framed
Date: 2023
Size: 16″ x 20″

Title: Sexual Bunnies
Material: archival photograph, framed
Date: 2023
Size: 16″ x 24″

Title: Tied up Bunnies
Material: archival photograph, framed
Date: 2023
Size: 18″ x 24″

Derek Knight, Morgantown, West Virginia-based ceramicist and drag queen; currently working on a body of work inspired by the human form and linking queer culture and mental health.

Title: Male Nude #6
Materials: porcelain, framed
Date: 2020
Size: 5″ x 5″

Title: Male Nude #6
Materials: porcelain, framed
Date: 2024
Size: 7″ x 7″

SECTION 3

Glenn Fry, Washington, DC-based painter and photographer; has multiple installations in regional institutions like his series ‘Visualize Having’ at the Federal Reserve Bank Board HQ; 2023 solo show at 11:Eleven Gallery in Washington, DC.

Title: Come to Where the Flavor is
Materials: Acrylic paint, silkscreen, diamond dust on wood
Date: 2023
Size: 30″ x 36″

Title: Come Hungry, Leave Happy
Materials: Acrylic paint & silkscreen on wood
Date: 2023
Size: 22″ x 32″

Title: Truckers
Materials: Acrylic paint & silkscreen on wood
Date: 2023
Size: 45″ x 30″

Title: Got Milk?
Materials: Acrylic paint & silkscreen on wood
Date: 2023
Size: 23″ x 60″

Title: Mmm Mmm Good
Materials: Acrylic paint & silkscreen on wood
Date: 2023
Size: 25″ x 36″

Title: Glenn Fry LIFE
Materials: Acrylic paint, silkscreen, diamond dust on wood
Date: 2023
Size: 34″ x 34″

Title: We Have the Meats
Materials: Acrylic paint, silkscreen, diamond dust on wood
Year: 2023
Size: 37″ x 28″

Title: This Bud’s for You
Materials: Acrylic paint, silkscreen, diamond dust on wood
Date: 2023
Size: 28″ x 28″

Title: Good to the Last Drop
Materials: Acrylic paint & silkscreen on wood
Date: 2023
Size: 30″ x 46″

Title: Open 24 Hours
Materials: Acrylic paint & silkscreen on wood
Date: 2023
Size: 28″ x 28″

Title: Try It, You’ll Like It
Materials: Acrylic paint & silkscreen on wood
Date: 2023
Size: 27″ x 34″

Title: Unleash the Beast
Materials: Acrylic paint & silkscreen on wood
Date: 2023
Size: 28″ x 24.5″

Title: Got Your Force Right Here
Materials: Acrylic paint & silkscreen on wood
Date: 2023
Size: 18″ x 24″

Title: When You Wish Upon A Star
Materials: Silkscreen, dildos, diamond dust-on wood
Date: 2023
Size: 34″ x 25″

Ryan Rudewicz (aka Rude Polaroids), Brooklyn-based polaroid photographer; 2023 GLAM Best NYC Nightlife Photographer; Paper Magazine feature on NYC drag; solo show at Studio Lacombe in Provincetown, MA in September 2023.

Title: Mood Board of Men
Materials: polaroid photography, framed
Date: 2024
Size: 22″ x 16″

Title: Dicks, dicks, dicks
Materials: polaroid photography, framed
Date: 2024
Size: 16″ x 16″

Chantis Parks, New York City-based street photographer; official photographer of the 2023 Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco in September 2023 and a featured artist at MASS COLLAB MEDIA productions in New York City in 2023.

Title: My Pleasure Sir, Folsom SF
Materials: Photo, Canson Infinity Photo Lustre Premium RC, framed
Date: 2023
Size: 13″ x 19″

Title: Fur-omones
Materials: Photo, Canson Infinity Photo Lustre Premium RC, framed
Date: 2023
Size: 13″ x 19″

Title: Worship Service, Your Wildest Dreams (Series)
Materials: Photo, Canson Infinity Photo Lustre Premium RC, framed
Date: 2023
Size: 13″ x 19″

Title: Hole vs Horns, Your Wildest Dreams (Series) Photo, Canson Infinity Photo Lustre Premium RC, framed
Date: 2023
Size: 13″ x 19″

Title: Love Always, Folsom SF
Materials: Photo, Moab Slickrock Metallic Pearl, framed
Date: 2023
Size: 11″ x 14″

SECTION 4

Aiden Paddlety, DC-area mixed media artist; raised by a punk and indigenous mother in Oklahoma, his works cycle between macabre imagery of his favored ‘bone men’, and illustrative punk-tivsm.

Title: The Silent Agony of Mourning
Materials: mixed media, acrylic paint/digital painting, framed
Date: 2023
Size: 16″ x 20″

Title: The Sweet Allure of the Beautiful Dead
Materials: mixed media, inks, fabric flora
Date: 2023
Size: 20″ x 16″

Kayla Rodriguez, New York City-based wire-wrapping and sculptural jewelry artist; uses natural materials, crystals, beads, chains, and wire to create face crowns, bracelets, and lip, nose, and ear-rings with intention; custom jeweler.

Title: 3rd Eye and other Intuitions
Description: Lip cuff
Materials: Copper, Brass, Amethyst & Super 7
Date: 2023

Title: 3rd Eye and other Intuitions Earrings
Materials: Copper, Brass, Amethyst & Super 7
Date: 2023

Title: 3rd Eye and other Intuitions Crystal Candelabra
Materials: Copper, Brass, Amethyst & Super 7
Date: 2023

Title: 3rd Eye and other Intuitions Ring and Wrist cuff
Materials: Copper, Brass, Amethyst & Super 7
Date: 2023

Title: 3rd Eye and other Intuitions Face Crown
Materials: Copper, Brass, Amethyst & Super 7
Date: 2023

Freddie Chavda, Brooklyn-based mixed media artist who specializes in hand cut portraiture and fashion editorial analog collage art; founder of the Brooklyn Loft, an art creation and figure drawing studio in Bushwick.

Title: Heathens 01
Materials: Hand-cut analog collage on mixed media paper, framed
Date: 2024
Size: 12″ x 16″

Title: Heathens 02
Materials: Hand-cut analog collage on mixed media paper, framed
Date: 2024
Size: 12″ x 16″

SECTION 5

Gio Black Peter, New York City-based painter and visual artist; guest artist at the 30th International Festival of Fashion and Photography in Hyères, France; solo exhibition at Soho Project Space in New York City and a residency in Berlin in Fall 2023.

Title: Blood on your hands!, THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR GENOCIDE
Materials: Oil, acrylic, on canvas, wooden frame
Date: 2024
Size: 14″ x 12″

Title: Untitled ADC
Materials: mixed media
Size: 2.25″ x 10″ x 1″

Title: Untitled BDC
Materials: mixed media
Size: 2.25″ x 11″ x 1″