Photograph by Pacifico Silano

Image Title: Poolside

Dimensions: 24x20"

Medium: Archival Pigment Print

Year Created: 2018

Edition 1/3, 1 AP

Image Description:

Through obscuring, layering and re-photographing, I re-contextualize gay erotica from the post-Stonewall Riots through the mid 1980's. I remove the source material's overt explicit content, instead focusing in on the background of centerfolds, creating quiet portraits of fragmented bodies, inanimate objects and landscapes. These new pictures within pictures are silent witnesses that allude to the absence caused by the AIDS crisis.

These representations of gay life, widely distributed through cheaply produced magazines are now markers of innumerable loss. With our relationship to the past constantly evolving, the definitions of these images are not fixed, they're constantly in flux. I'm interested in the power of a photograph, our relationship to mass produced imagery and how it has shaped modern gay identity.

Photographer's Bio:

Pacifico Silano is a lens-based artist whose work is an exploration of print culture, the circulation of imagery and LGBTQ identity. Born in Brooklyn, NY, he received his MFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts. His work has been exhibited in group shows, including at the Bronx Museum; Tacoma Art Museum; Oude Kerk, Amsterdam; and ClampArt, New York City. He has had solo shows at ClampArt, Baxter ST@CCNY, Rubber-Factory and Stellar Projects, NYC.

Reviews of his work have appeared in The New Yorker, Artforum, Washington Post and The New York Times. He is a winner of the Individual Photographer's Fellowship from the Aaron Siskind Foundation and a Finalist for the Aperture Foundation Portfolio Prize. He was chosen as an Artist in Residence at Light Work in Syracuse, NY, granted a Workspace Residency at Baxter Street CCNY and was a Key Holder Resident at the Lower East Side Printshop. He is a 2016 fellow in Photography with the New York Foundation for the Arts.

A selection of his work will be included in the upcoming exhibition "Fantasy America" at The Warhol Museum in 2020.

https://www.pacificosilano.com/