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Queer moderns: Max Ewing’s Jazz Age New York
Friedman, Alice T.
Princeton University Press
, 2025
; English
; 281 Pages
A richly illustrated history of the glittering world of queer artistic life in the 1920s and '30s
In Queer Moderns, Alice Friedman tells the fascinating story of the queer avant-garde of the 1920s and '30s in New York, Paris, and Venice, as seen through the eyes of Max Ewing (1903–1934), a young musician, photographer, and man-about-town who, although virtually unknown today, moved in extraordinary circles. In his photographs and letters, we meet the rising stars of modern art, music, dance, and literature and enter a world of interracial friendship, "queer space," and experimentation that shone brightly before being swept away by the Depression. It is a remarkable story that reveals that the history of modernism is more queer and more Black than previously recognized.
In the 1920s, Ewing became part of an international coterie of artists led by Carl Van Vechten and Muriel Draper. In Europe, he was entertained by Gertrude Stein, met Stravinsky, and took a road trip with Romaine Brooks and Natalie Barney. In 1928, in a closet in his apartment, Ewing created the Gallery of Extraordinary Portraits, an installation of photos of his favorite celebrities—Black and white, clothed and nude. For his Carnival of Venice, he took portraits of more than a hundred friends—including Paul Robeson, Berenice Abbott, Isamu Noguchi, Agnes de Mille, and E. E. Cummings—posed in front of a backdrop of Saint Mark's Square.
Like a character from a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ewing joined the party and then died tragically, unable to accept the end of his era or the lost dream of a new way of living. His story sheds new light on modernism and an artistic milieu that was ahead of its time.
Friedman, Alice T.
Princeton University Press
, 2025
; English
; 281 Pages
A richly illustrated history of the glittering world of queer artistic life in the 1920s and '30s
In Queer Moderns, Alice Friedman tells the fascinating story of the queer avant-garde of the 1920s and '30s in New York, Paris, and Venice, as seen through the eyes of Max Ewing (1903–1934), a young musician, photographer, and man-about-town who, although virtually unknown today, moved in extraordinary circles. In his photographs and letters, we meet the rising stars of modern art, music, dance, and literature and enter a world of interracial friendship, "queer space," and experimentation that shone brightly before being swept away by the Depression. It is a remarkable story that reveals that the history of modernism is more queer and more Black than previously recognized.
In the 1920s, Ewing became part of an international coterie of artists led by Carl Van Vechten and Muriel Draper. In Europe, he was entertained by Gertrude Stein, met Stravinsky, and took a road trip with Romaine Brooks and Natalie Barney. In 1928, in a closet in his apartment, Ewing created the Gallery of Extraordinary Portraits, an installation of photos of his favorite celebrities—Black and white, clothed and nude. For his Carnival of Venice, he took portraits of more than a hundred friends—including Paul Robeson, Berenice Abbott, Isamu Noguchi, Agnes de Mille, and E. E. Cummings—posed in front of a backdrop of Saint Mark's Square.
Like a character from a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ewing joined the party and then died tragically, unable to accept the end of his era or the lost dream of a new way of living. His story sheds new light on modernism and an artistic milieu that was ahead of its time.
eBook
Art and intimacy in modern Italy : entangled lives
Hecker, Sharon; Kittler, Teresa
Bloomsbury Visual Arts
, 2025
; English
; 321 Pages
A much-needed corrective to the history of single authorship, this timely volume offers new insight into the lives and practices of the artist couples, friendships and communities that shaped postwar art in Italy. Bringing together a series of essays from international scholars across a variety of subject fields, the volume considers a range of longstanding intimate working relationships. Questioning the extent to which exchange formed part of artistic production, and the nature of such partnerships, the contributors explore a variety of underexplored case studies that opens to new readings of Italian art informed by key contemporary issues surrounding gender and sexuality, modern Italian identities and transcultural exchange.
In covering friendships, bi-racial, trans-cultural and familial relations, the volume adds much needed perspectives to modern Italy's social and political histories, through case studies of well-known as well as overlooked figures and creative partnerships including Mario and Marisa Merz
the de Chirico brothers, William Demby and Lucia Drudi
and Antonia and Ugo Mulas. Three sections guide the reader through different working and affective dynamics: Shadowy Presences, Ins and Outs
and Alliances. The volume explores practitioners in the visual arts, as well as art critics, institutional figures, screen and theatre writers, designers, and photographers. Rather than merely a descriptive or celebratory account of couples and partnerships in postwar Italian art, Art and Intimacy in Modern Italy asks what comes into view and what is left out when thinking about art history through this relational lens.
Hecker, Sharon; Kittler, Teresa
Bloomsbury Visual Arts
, 2025
; English
; 321 Pages
A much-needed corrective to the history of single authorship, this timely volume offers new insight into the lives and practices of the artist couples, friendships and communities that shaped postwar art in Italy. Bringing together a series of essays from international scholars across a variety of subject fields, the volume considers a range of longstanding intimate working relationships. Questioning the extent to which exchange formed part of artistic production, and the nature of such partnerships, the contributors explore a variety of underexplored case studies that opens to new readings of Italian art informed by key contemporary issues surrounding gender and sexuality, modern Italian identities and transcultural exchange.
In covering friendships, bi-racial, trans-cultural and familial relations, the volume adds much needed perspectives to modern Italy's social and political histories, through case studies of well-known as well as overlooked figures and creative partnerships including Mario and Marisa Merz
the de Chirico brothers, William Demby and Lucia Drudi
and Antonia and Ugo Mulas. Three sections guide the reader through different working and affective dynamics: Shadowy Presences, Ins and Outs
and Alliances. The volume explores practitioners in the visual arts, as well as art critics, institutional figures, screen and theatre writers, designers, and photographers. Rather than merely a descriptive or celebratory account of couples and partnerships in postwar Italian art, Art and Intimacy in Modern Italy asks what comes into view and what is left out when thinking about art history through this relational lens.
eBook
Contemporary queer Chinese art
Bao, Hongwei; Mergenthaler, Diyi; Zhao, Jamie J.
Bloomsbury Publishing
, 2023
; English
; 249 Pages
"Contemporary Queer Chinese Art is the first English-language academic book that explores the intersections of queer culture and contemporary Chinese art in a transnational context from the mid-1980s to the present. This book brings together 20 internationally renowned artists, activists, curators and scholars to explore heterogeneous expressions of Chineseness and queerness in contemporary art from China and Chinese diasporas in Asia, Europe and North America. Examining contemporary visual art, performance, literature and activism, this book offers a critical archive of queer artistic expressions in a transnational context. It provides critical insights into the status quo and intersectional struggles of Chinese artists who identify themselves as queer and who have associated their work with queer positionalities and perspectives. By sharing personal experiences, art expressions and critical insights about what it means to be queer in a transnational context, the book reveals multiple forms and potentialities of queer politics in the domains of art and activism"
Bao, Hongwei; Mergenthaler, Diyi; Zhao, Jamie J.
Bloomsbury Publishing
, 2023
; English
; 249 Pages
"Contemporary Queer Chinese Art is the first English-language academic book that explores the intersections of queer culture and contemporary Chinese art in a transnational context from the mid-1980s to the present. This book brings together 20 internationally renowned artists, activists, curators and scholars to explore heterogeneous expressions of Chineseness and queerness in contemporary art from China and Chinese diasporas in Asia, Europe and North America. Examining contemporary visual art, performance, literature and activism, this book offers a critical archive of queer artistic expressions in a transnational context. It provides critical insights into the status quo and intersectional struggles of Chinese artists who identify themselves as queer and who have associated their work with queer positionalities and perspectives. By sharing personal experiences, art expressions and critical insights about what it means to be queer in a transnational context, the book reveals multiple forms and potentialities of queer politics in the domains of art and activism"
