Tyler Pratt

Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Hassold, Cris

Keywords

Sherer, Robert, Blood Painting, Queer, HIV, Art History

Area of Concentration

Gender, Arts and Theory

Abstract

Gay men had just begun to ‘come out’ as agents in political discourse when the AIDS crisis began in the early 1980s, and the exclusion of gay men from the general public became a moral imperative. Despite the rapid rate of cultural change in the last three decades, history still ‘closets’ gay subjects, automatically excluding them from the general public to which ‘the greater good’ caters. Art history, too, has played a role in silencing gay political discourse. Robert Sherer’s ongoing Blood Works series is comprised of illustrations in HIV-positive and -negative blood, and depicts the hazards of gay sexuality in light of HIV stigma. Described by the artist as “love stories where something has gone wrong,” the series documents Sherer’s own experience, memorializes a younger generation of gay men trying to salvage love in a community ravaged by AIDS, and exposes heterosexual anxieties about sex and subjectivity. Love begets lust, infatuation confronts fear, identification becomes abjection as Blood Works’s subject encounters the threat of infection in friends, lovers, and community—all symbolized by garden-variety plants and insects. Incorporating imaginative metaphors and subtle humor with emotive power, some of Sherer’s illustrations invoke tokens of affection or memorial devices; others germinate in the margins, documenting trans-historical encounters between love and death. In this thesis I analyze the political efficacy of Robert Sherer’s Blood Works by interrogating his creative processes and art historical influences, as well as the series’ ripe imagery within the context of contemporary political climates.

Download

Share

COinS