Advertisement

Art Art & Books

Boys’ club

ANTHONY GOICOLEA at Monte Clark Gallery (55 Mill, building #2), to January 17. 416-703-1700. Rating: NNNNN Rating: NNNNN


Anthony Goicolea creates other- worldly tableaux that depict rites of passage oozing with homoerotic sexuality.

The Septemberists series chronicles a group of boys in a dream-like landscape reminiscent of an old Southern plantation. The digitally composed large-scale colour photographs show a community that seems to be a hybrid of monastery, military and boarding school. The result is luscious.

In Sleeping, seven young men lie in cots beneath the wooden slats of a peaked barn roof. Sun pierces through windows in a bright morning haze as the boys wake and twitch with morning desire.

In the exquisite Clothesline, the boys are doing their laundry at a river. Silently and without interacting, they dutifully scrub as dusk approaches. The river theme returns in Still Waters, in which a group of boys stand on the shore. Three others are waist deep in the dark water, one gently holding a muscular but androgynous-looking man positioned for baptism by immersion. Without being obvious or garish, Goicolea’s images are sexually charged and seeped in metaphor.

Spanning almost the entire length of a wall, Greenhouse shows young boys surrounded by cotton budding on brown sprigs in a steam-filled conservatory. They gaze downward, avoiding one another’s eyes, the fluffy cotton hinting at boyhood shyness.

This photograph is chillingly sensitive and bleeds with longing and beauty, as does all the work in this superb show.

**

art@nowtoronto.com

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted