United & Proud 2003

Message from the President of ArtsUnited On behalf of the volunteer Board of Directors, welcome to ArtsUnited's United and Proud Exhibit! We thank you for taking the time to visit this exhibit and learn more about art from the gay and lesbian community. It is our hope that better understanding will encourage tolerance and acceptance rather than distrust and discrimination.   ArtsUnited was founded in 1999 in response to the growing need of local gay and lesbian artists for an interactive and supportive working environment. Our objective is to use the arts to present a positive message about the gay and lesbian community to the general public. In this way, we hope to help break down the historical barriers that have prevented gays and lesbians from contributing fully and openly to the cultural, social and economic success of South Florida.   Throughout the year, ArtsUnited introduces South Florida to local gay and gay-friendly visual artists in monthly solo artist exhibits at both the Stonewall Library and Archives in Fort Lauderdale and Stork's Bakery in Wilton Manors. Visual and performance artists, writers and theatre are featured at ArtExplosion each year, a one-night event that is a "must see" in the local art scene.   In the tradition of art communities of the past, ArtsUnited sponsors quarterly 'Art Community Salons" where local artists and art lovers come together in a social setting to network and learn more about the art of South Florida. Each salon features a local artist or art organization and is hosted either in a private home or art facility. Anyone who is anyone in the arts should attend these fun and educational evenings.   We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit volunteer organization funded by membership dues and tax-deductible donations from art lovers in the community. Membership is open to anyone interested in supporting our mission. Applications are available online at www.artsunitedonline.org. Please support us in presenting art in South Florida!   Sincerely, Chuck Williams, President Board of Directors, ArtsUnited

United and Proud Sheds Light on a Dark Subject Gay and Lesbian Art Show Spotlights Discrimination Mary Damiano, Express Gay News More than 300 people packed Gallery Six at the Broward County main library Wednesday, June 4, for the opening night reception of United and Proud, the third annual art exhibit featuring gay and lesbian artists. United and Proud was presented by the Broward County Library and ArtsUnited, an organization dedicated to showcasing gay and lesbian artists. About 50 artists were represented with photography, sculpture, painting and multi-media works, including photographers Dennis Dean and frequent Express contributors Steve Shires and J.W. Calcaterra, known as Pompano Bill. As the crowd munched on food donated by Publix, they were serenaded by Lambda Chorale, who gave guests a sneak preview of their June 28 Regards to Broadway concert. But there was a serious message at United and Proud as well. Discrimination was the thread running through the show, and each artist exhibited not only their artwork, but their own statement about discrimination. "There's a lot of energy here tonight," said Nate Klarfeld, board member of ArtsUnited. "What's powerful is having the theme of discrimination. It not only brought more people out but made them look at the art." Klarfeld said that once people began reading each artist's statement about discrimination, it made them eager to read each one. "It was literary and visual, using all the senses." The exhibit was also interactive, and featured a large board on which guests could express their own feelings about discrimination. The board has mimioActive technology, so whatever was written on the board went immediately into a computer and printed out on paper. The pages were then posted on the back of the board and will be kept in a book a part of the exhibit. Klarfeld manned the board all evening. "It's like writing therapy," he said. "Some people write down one word, and others do these long paragraphs that they've thought out. People have a need to express themselves." Tony Beall, a former executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, was there opening night with his neon sculpture Rainbow Passage. He was impressed by the turnout. "As a new artist and someone who wants to get their artwork to the community, ArtsUnited is a great organization to be a part of," he said. Beall's piece, a gate with rainbow neon, has special meaning for him. "Because it's United and Proud, I thought it was relevant to do something in the rainbow colors to show that I'm proud being a gay artist. I chose the gate that the neon is on as my way of opening the rainbow door and letting people come in and understand." Another artist, Zuska, the executive director of the Broward Art Guild, presented her artist statement through a photograph of her wrapped in the American flag and gagged with the stars and stripes. "As an artist, I believe it's my responsibility to educate and inform the community," Zuska said. "They don't have to like it, but I want them to try to understand it. Art is so vital to everyone's life." R.L. Sternberg's work stood out because it was the only piece of literature in United and Proud, a framed essay called Nature of the Beast, about the absurdity of discrimination, primarily the discrimination against the gay community. "When you walk through the show, there's a feeling, there's an ambiance here," Sternberg said. "Chris Yoculan is a master at putting together a show." Yoculan, vice president of ArtsUnited and curator of United and Proud, also had a piece in the show, a self-portrait made up entirely of pills. While Yoculan expressed his pride in the way United and Proud has grown, his curator's statement spotlighted the things that still need to be improved, namely gay rights and equality. "The Supreme Court may actually make consensual gay sex in private a federal crime once again," Yoculan stated. "State lawmakers are trying to sneak through bills to eliminate local gay rights ordinances. Seemingly, everything that we marched for, fought for and were often arrested for is slowly dissolving behind the parade." In his statement, Yoculan also encouraged people to continue the dialogue of discrimination, with family, friends and especially legislators. "I think the show has a real strength to it," Yoculan told The Express. "But now more than ever, people need to get out there and scream and march, instead of standing behind a table and passing out rainbow stickers.' United and Proud will be on exhibit through June 30 on the sixth floor of the Broward County Main Library, 100 S. Andrews Ave., Fort Lauderdale.

The Slow Unveiling of the Male Nude Library Event Traces History from Art to Obscenity and Back to Art Dan Aiello, Express Gay News It's a form of simple, natural beauty. Symbolic. An image that defines words, rather than one defined by words. It is power, strength, passion. Revered and so highly regarded by the great ancient civilizations that it was memorialized in bronze, marble and on canvas. It is the naked male body. For centuries the male body was appreciated not behind closed doors but publicly. It was art in motion. Even the first Olympians competed unclothed. The homes unearthed in Pompeii revealed murals depicting the male nude, which was prevalent in the Roman Empire as a symbol of prosperity and vitality. But the religious dogma of a new world combined with the fear-based political edicts of a male-dominated society to transform how societies viewed "and then did not view" the male nude, according to David Leddick, guest speaker for ArtsUnited's lecture 'Photographing Naked Men: a Visual Revolution.' The event was presented in conjunction with the Broward County Libraries as the fourth in a series celebrating Gay Pride Month. Leddick noted that the male nude's banishment from public view was carried into the 21st century by the laws, regulations and policies of most of the nations of the world. According to Leddick, who teamed up with local photographer and author Dennis Dean for the event, the male nude is a form as natural as any on Earth, yet it has been obliterated from public view, the most regulated and repressed image on the globe. More laws exist to restrict its exposure than do for any other. Censorship guidelines still forbid frontal nudity of the male body on American television and cable. And despite the 1967 Supreme Court decision that the male body is not obscene, in most states, severe fines and jail still await anyone who would dare to display it, especially in person. Once art, it's now considered obscene. The image is the same, only society changed. But Leddick, who's award-winning books, 'Naked Men: Pioneering Male Nudes' and the sequel 'Naked Men, Too: Liberating the Male Nude' are best-sellers, said that for those like him who seek liberation for the male body, help is on the way, led by, ironically, women. "The liberation of the male nude is more than just about art," Leddick said. "It's about a society willing to accept equality for everyone." The author pointed out that his book sales prove his point that women are behind "a cultural shift" in beliefs and values that is once again defining the body as art, not perversion. "There's been an enormous cultural shift in this country," he said. "People don't know how big it really is. Men have become sex objects. Half of my book sales are to gay men, but what may surprise many is that 40 percent are to women and 10 percent are to couples. The idea that women don't care about the male body is a male myth that women went along with but are doing so less and less." Leddick said that advertising targeting women began the slow but definite unveiling of the male body. And in his collective photography books, Leddick discovered something else he found surprising. "Some of the most homoerotic male nude images were shot by women," he noted. Local artist Don Hanover, III, in displaying his art at the exhibit, noted his experience with censorship. "Often I find discrimination to be basically invisible and not blatant," he said. "As an artist who has used the male form as subject matter for more than a quarter century, I have had work rejected from shows because of the subject matter, and only tame nudes are included in the shows." Hanover once won first place in a Columbus art competition only to have the piece censored from public view. Its crime was the subject matter, the male nude. Even the Broward County Libraries took some flack for bringing Leddick and Dean together for this ArtsUnited event. Sharon Morris, program exhibit coordinator for the main library, was delighted by the standing-room-only turnout of the ArtsUnited event. She had just been through a week of phone calls from citizens outraged that the library would hold such an event, but this evening's attendance had bolstered her spirits. "People were concerned that tonight's event would be pornographic in nature," she said. "Most of the calls were from people concerned that we were teaching people how to take pictures of naked men. They told me they didn't appreciate their tax dollars being spent for that purpose." Morris said the Broward County Libraries receive a lot of calls from people demanding more censorship. "They want us to put Internet filtering programs on our computers, too," Morris said, "but we won't do that." Dean, who is currently working on three calendars of local Fort Lauderdale men, showed slides of male nudes taken in familiar local haunts, including Dania Beach, the site of so many recent arrests of gay men. "I guess I can't shoot there anymore," Dean said, chuckling. For him, circumventing archaic laws is all in a day's work. "Part of the fun of photography is being daring," said Dean, whose use of natural lighting dictates that he must occasionally choose between getting the shot he wants and risking being arrested for ignoring public decency laws. A native of Alabama and a minister's son, Dean said that he has had several close calls with police, especially in his home state. Leddick, who's enjoyed great success with his books, also keeps the beauty of the male body in perspective because, after all, it remains a fading beauty. "I believe there are three reasons why you would want to know someone, because they are beautiful, because they are interesting or because they are good. If you're not beautiful or interesting, then you should try very, very hard to be good," he said, noting that he has a presented a lecture on the emptiness of beauty.