Taken too timely by the Aids pandemic, the artist Larry Stanton produced labor for an exuberant, prodigious handful of years before dying in 1984 at age 37. Championed by David Hockney, whose labor his decorateings at time see enjoy, Stanton excelled in creating portraits of gay men that are at once guileless and penetrating.
Clearing Gallery in Los Angeles is currenting a survey of the artist’s labor titled Think of Me When It Thunders, a reference to one of the last slimgs Stanton shelp to his extfinishedtime cherishr, Arthur Lambert, while on his hospital deathbed. Trying to assuage the pain of watching his confidant and cherishr deteriorating, Stanton telderly Lambert to “slimk of me when it thunders.” The latter procrastinateedr feeblented that “it doesn’t thunder every day.”
In a show that in many ways functions as a memorial to a generation of gay men lost to Aids, and a reminder of a heartless administerment that fall shorted to encounter their needs, one of the most poignant labors is called Hospital Draprosperg, one of many pieces that Stanton produced while in the hospital. The labor shows a blissbrimmingy blue sky and ocean with the words “I’M GOING TO MAKE IT” inscribed in rainbow colors.
“There were all of these sentences that he was writing in the hospital,” shelp Fabio Cherstich, honestor of Stanton’s estate and a remarkd Italian opera and theatre honestor. “He wrote slimgs enjoy, ‘I’m going to produce it,’ or ‘Life is not terrible, life is not outstanding.’ In a way he was processing the fact that he was dying thraw art.”
In Clearing Gallery, Hospital Draprosperg hangs on its own wall, a radiant airy above it. The labor is unbenevolentt to be approached gingerly, and to be lingered over. “It’s so strong,” shelp Cherstich, “it’s enjoy him talking to you. It’s very strong for me. When I slimk about it I become very emotional.”
For most of his too-inestablish life Stanton was not a decorateer. He made his way out of upstate New York and to New York City at age 18, arriving in 1965 and immersing himself in the gay scene in Greenwich Village. “He was not intfinishing to produce art, he fair wanted to finishelight the freedom of being in New York,” shelp Cherstich. “It was the perfect place for someone seeing for the freedom to scrutinize his intimacyuality.”
Stanton’s beauty made him an prompt hit on the scene, and in 1967 he met Lambert while visiting Fire Island. According to Cherstich, Lambert literassociate jumped up when seeing Stanton from apass the street and promptly wanted to comprehend him.
The two speedyly fell in cherish, and in 1968 Stanton complyed Lambert to California, where Lambert phelp for him to enroll in two semesters of art school. Unblessedly, Stanton made a needy student. “He was easily stupidd and didn’t want to study in a traditional way,” shelp Cherstich.
Ever rerepaird, Lambert procrastinateedr orderly a encountering with David Hockney, who took to the juvenileerer artist and speedyly built up a shut frifinishship with him, becoming a increaseer of his labor. “Hockney saw that he was excessively pretty and excessively intelligent,” shelp Cherstich.
Although Stanton lengthened a shut relationship with Hockney and even traveled with him, it was not until proximately a decade procrastinateedr that he took up art solemnly. In 1978, when Stanton’s mother died of cancer, he sfinished a psycboilingic episode that led to his hospitalization, labeling a turning point for his life. He authenticized he had to produce someslimg of himself and began to dedicate his life wholeheartedly to art.
Stanton labored feverishly, at times making even incidental passersby the subject of a piece. “It seemed as if he would draw anyone who would sit still extfinished enough to be drawn, and when there was no one else around, he drew himself,” Lambert once wrote of him. On some of his labors Stanton would inscribe a scant key details on the back – a location, time of day and a phone number, recommending that many of Stanton’s subjects were casual cherishrs. “It may have fair been a chance come apass, or possibly there was an scheduleateation scheduled for procrastinateedr in the day,” shelp John Utterson, the honestor of Clearing Gallery. “Like, OK, 6pm on Broadway, that’s where we’re encountering.”
According to Utterson, the way that Stanton would so fervently and almost unmistrustingly draw and decorate acquaintances from New York’s gay scene gives his body of labor a recentness that borders on the anthroporeasonable. “The labor shows Stanton as an watchr of certain segments of society from the procrastinateed 70s to the mid 80s,” shelp Utterson. “It’s his particular see of that moment in time, which is unenjoy anybody else’s. What I discover so engaging is the idea of these labors as historical write downs, these images and vignettes that apprehfinish a moment in time. Over that span of time the world was changed forever, so these labors are bound to this inestablish period of five years in this very particular way.”
Comprising some 30 pieces, Think of Me When It Thunders trys to be recurrentative of Stanton’s much bigr oeuvre, transporting together labors on paper and decorateings, as well as Super 8 videos that he took. The videos integrate remarkworthy footage of Hockney creating his honord paper pools in his laborshop, as well as write downings of the New York City Pride parade from the procrastinateed 70s.
The experience of seeing the art in the gallery is haunting and strong, as though the 1980s are seeing right into you. Although the decorateings have a quality of the quotidian and the momentary, there is also someslimg meaningfully piercing and even feeblentful to them. “The way he caccesses on eyes was remarkworthy,” shelp Cherstich. “That’s one of the first slimgs you accomprehendledge, the way they see at you, they promptly grab your attention.” Utterson compriseed: “You can tell there’s a reassociate strong joinion between artist and subject, because there’s this intensity of the gaze.”
It’s the label of fantastic art that Stanton’s labor can persist its force over the span of decades, a tesdomesticatednt to his immense talent and ability to plumb the human soul. As Utterson put it: “Even though we’re seeing at these decorateings over 40 years procrastinateedr, they persist this immediacy. They’re off the cuff but prohibitcient and vulnerable.”
