Tom of Finland: The Complete Kake Comics

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Tom’s comics have long had a special place within the LGBTQ community and I believe, now more than ever, it is vital that his work is shown; as Julie Tait, Director of The Lakes International Comic Art Festival has it: this comic work offers an essential perspective on queer culture at a critical point in its history. Keep Your Timber Limber at the ICA pulls together boundary-pushing drawings by eight artists that challenge gender, sexual and political stereotypes and highlight issues of war and censorship. It is a unique, free exhibition, open to those over 18, and part of the official Tom of Finland Centenary celebrations, supported by the Finnish Institute. ArtLyst is the exhibition media partner. In 1985, the artist Mike Kelley brought Tom of Finland to CalArts, the legendary Southern California art school, to give a talk. In his introduction, Kelley called Tom of Finland “an incredible inspiration in my work.” In context, it was a bold statement. “CalArts was steeped within the dogma of conceptual art, and Tom, of course, was anything but that,” the gallerist David Kordansky, who represents Tom of Finland’s work through the foundation, says.

Tom of Finland - Pen and Ink 1965 – 1989 - Exhibitions Tom of Finland - Pen and Ink 1965 – 1989 - Exhibitions

For a long time, there was no language around transness, or folks that were gender nonconforming or nonbinary. And I think, similarly, perhaps when Tom of Finland was forging this iconic style, he really took ownership over his definition of what it was to be a homosexual, which was perhaps, at that time, a term that was viewed as weak or derogatory. For him to manifest this totally fantastical, empowered erotic vision, it was completely contrary to that. So, I think that aspect of his imagining is something that has definitely influenced me as an artist, in terms of me being able to understand and forge a possibility for myself. John Waters , Baltimore-based filmmaker

Laaksonen was diagnosed with emphysema in 1988. Eventually the disease and medication caused his hands to tremble, leading him to switch media from pencil to pastel. He died in 1991 of an emphysema-induced stroke. [6] Private life [ edit ] The defining traits of Kake's character are his friendly and easygoing personality, and his promiscuity. The character's affable disposition intentionally contrasts typical portrayals of leathermen in heterosexual culture as menacing or dangerous, while his frequent sexual encounters reflect the attitudes of the sexual liberation movement that emerged in the 1960s. [1] [2] Writer F. Valentine Hooven III notes that when the series focuses on subjects such as BDSM or rape fetishism, any sadistic acts performed by Kake are rendered as "innocent fun," and that the characters Kake performs these acts on are "welcome to do the same to him." [1] In 1991, Filmitakomo and Yleisradio produced a documentary film, Daddy and the Muscle Academy, [2] directed by Ilppo Pohjola. By the late 1980s, Laaksonen was well known in the gay world, but his "pneumatically muscled, meticulously rendered monster-donged icons of masculinity" received mainstream attention when the film – which includes hundreds of images of his work along with interviews – was released theatrically in Finland, won a Finnish Jussi Award in 1992, [40] and was shown at film festivals and film art houses worldwide. [25] [41] [42] While praising the artwork's quality one critic noted the film's lauding of Laaksonen as a gay pride icon while ignoring his work's "resemblance to both S & M pornography and Fascist art" which she tied to Laaksonen's early sexual experiences with German soldiers during World War II. [42] a b Festival Diary: Bad karma and the Big Yin: The Billy Connolly Affair and trouble and strife with The Bay City Rollers. Sheila Johnston reports from the 46th Edinburgh International Film Festival Sheila Johnston, The Independent, 21 August 1992. FROM ADVERTISING TO GAY EROTICA: THE WORK OF TOM OF FINLAND". Tom of Finland Foundation. 15 June 2015 . Retrieved 28 March 2021.

Tom of Finland. The Complete Kake Comics - New Mags Tom of Finland. The Complete Kake Comics - New Mags

Suomen sarjakuvaseura ry - 1990: Touko Laaksonen - Tom of Finland". The Finnish Comics Society (in Finnish) . Retrieved 19 January 2019. a b Slade, Joseph W.: Pornography and Sexual Representation: A Reference Guide, Volume 2. Pp. 545–546. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. ISBN 0-313-27568-8Nudity started being an important subject in art in ancient Greece. The male body was celebrated at sports competitions or religious festivals, it... Tom of Finland TOM House: The Work and Life of Tom of Finland Mike Kelley's Mobile Homestead, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) Tom of Finland: The Art of Pleasure. Mischa Ramakers, ed. London: Taschen, 1998, ISBN 3-8228-8598-3 Hooven III, Valentine, Tom of Finland: The Official Life and Work of a Gay Hero. New York: Abrams, 2020, p.224. Hooven, F. Valentine III (2012). Tom of Finland: Life and Work of a Gay Hero. Berlin: Bruno Gmünder Verlag. ISBN 978-3-86787-166-2.

Kake, vol 1, The Intruder VIII by Tom of Finland on artnet

In 1999, an exhibition took place at the Institut Culturel Finlandais ( Finnish Cultural Centre) in Paris. Hidden underground for hundreds of years, depictions of sex, love, and erotica in Andean pre-Columbian art are now proudly displayed in the Erotic... Ilppo Pohjola (author): Kari Paljakka and Alvaro Pardo (producers): Daddy and the Muscle Academy: Tom of Finland. Filmitakomo & YLE, Finland 1991. (Duration of Feature: 58 Minutes. Also features frames of Laaksonen's graphic art.) Over the course offive decades, Tom’s work reflected societal changes as they appeared in fashion,technology, architecture, and commercial design (he began his career as an advertising illustrator).Because of the concentrated and consistent nature of his project, the peripheral variations that creep in become telling indicators of the ways in which the world was changing over the decades. For all of his many influential qualities, Tom was above all responsive: to his own desires, to the relationships and bodies he observed, and to his materials.

David Kordansky Gallery is pleased topresentTom of Finland: 100 Years, celebrating the centennial of the artist's birth. Featuring never-before-exhibiteddrawings in pencil and pen and ink, as well as Tom's personal collages, the show will remain on view throughTuesday, May 12, 2020, 8:00 am Pacific Time. Tom of Finland, what he modeled for us in his drawings, was actually a butch drag. We ended up adopting this — it was a way for us to do drag as a community. But G. B. Jones, with her drawings, all of a sudden made it part of our queer culture — we could think of ourselves as being women and leather dykes versus just doing drag. Simon Haas, of the Los Angeles-based artist duo the Haas Brothers Tom of Finland Compass in Hand: Selections from the Rothschild Foundation Collection The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York The subject of erotica is vast. Even reduced to only the Victorian world of erotica, it’s a challenge to write about in the space of an article.

Tom of Finland Eight Artists on the Influence of Tom of Finland

a b c Hooven, F. Valentine, III: Gay histories and cultures: an encyclopedia. Volume 2 of Encyclopedia of lesbian and gay histories and cultures. p. 884. George E. Haggerty, editor. Taylor & Francis, 2000. ISBN 0-8153-3354-4 Laaksonen's illustrations of leathermen, as exemplified by Kake, significantly influenced the aesthetics of the gay leather subculture. [6] Edward Lucie-Smith has noted that depictions of masculine gay men by Laaksonen "altered the way gay men think about themselves" and "began to elaborate an identity type, with dress and physical attributes" that countered stereotypes of gay men as weak and effeminate. [6] While the archetype of the masculine leatherman biker was well established in both gay and straight culture by the time of Kake's creation (notably in the 1953 film The Wild One starring Marlon Brando, which Laaksonen cites as a direct influence on his artwork), [5] F. Valentine Hooven III argues that "the leatherman as drawn by Tom of Finland" is "the gold standard, at least within the gay community." [1] Waugh, Thomas: Hard to Imagine: Gay Male Eroticism in Photography and Film from Their Beginnings to Stonewall. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-231-09998-3.New York's Museum of Modern Art has acquired several examples of Laaksonen's artwork for its permanent collection. [35] In 2006, MoMA in New York accepted five Tom of Finland drawings as part of a much larger gift from The Judith Rothschild Foundation. The trustee of The Judith Rothschild Foundation, Harvey S. Shipley Miller, said, "Tom of Finland is one of the five most influential artists of the twentieth century. As an artist he was superb, as an influence he was transcendent." [36] Hudson, of Feature Inc., New York, placed Tom of Finland's work in the collections of Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art and Art Institute of Chicago. His work is also in the public Collections of: The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, USA; Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art; Turku, Finland; University of California Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley (California), USA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA; Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA; and Tom of Finland Foundation, Los Angeles, USA. Tom of Finland’s influence is so vast that it can be hard to calculate. Through sheer force of imagination, the artist was able to manifest a hyper-real, hypermasculine style of queer erotic illustration that would end up inspiring not just legions of visual artists but entire subcultures. Any time a stylist puts a young pop star in a leather biker cap for a magazine shoot, the impact of Tom of Finland is not far-off. Laaksonen's illustrations of leathermen, as exemplified by Kake, significantly influenced the aesthetics of the gay leather subculture. Kake is among Laaksonen's most popular creations, having been alternately described as his "most iconic character" and as "the gay world's most familiar pin-up icon". World's first homoerotic stamps produced in Finland" (audio interview). Today programme. BBC News Online. 17 April 2014 . Retrieved 17 April 2014.