Article Series by Michael Getman highlighting Artists and thinkers, influential forces and inspiration, as well as the groundbreaking pioneer generation of the queer community.
Icons who operated out of the closet in the dark days when LGBT people were outlawed, whose stories and struggles have shaped the LGBTQ culture and the community as we know it today.
Originally translated from the Hebrew source published in Mako Magazine, 2020.
Who's Afraid of Francis Bacon?
An artist, a sage, a gambler, an aristocrat, a male escort, and a bohemian. Francis Bacon, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, conducted secret affairs with men during a time when homosexuality was illegal in England. He became a prominent cultural hero of the LGBTQ community..
The genius who took sexuality out of homosexuality.
Gay French philosopher, Michel Foucault, one of the world’s most famous intellectuals had dissented against the oppression of the normative order and redefined the homosexual identity. A lone wolf wandering in the dark mazes of modern life; perversion, madness, power, and sexuality.
A thief, a beggar prostitute and a whiff of a homoerotic symbol
The life of Jean Genet, the Avant-garde French author, was beyond schizophrenic: a thief, a beggar prostitute, and a whiff of a homoerotic symbol that continues to intoxicate artists, writers, musicians, and fashion designers to this day.
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
"..Much has been said and written about Oscar Pingal O'Flarty Willis Wilde, an Irish writer, poet, journalist, playwright, and fashion magazine editor - The Man and the Art - Dandy in exaggerated clothes, who loved all his life and this world, and paid a heavy price for it. I will not repeat the beautiful and wise words already written by scholars; it would be a waste of time..."
An artist, director, screenwriter, poet, actor, painter, footballer, gay, critic of the bourgeoisie, activist of the left, of the hirelings, the lads, the neighborhoods, and the suburbs.
Piere Paolo Pasolini created one of the most infamous motion pictures ever. The Vatican will no longer praise Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom, the last film Pasolini shot before his murder, which was censored and banned for screening due to its extremely violent nature and the brutal sexual scenes shown in it.