Gone Mild: A Look at Intimacy and Private Space

Musings on relationships, spatiality, and physical proximity.

By Ella Wong

Slow Dance, 1992-93, Kerry James Marshall

A floating scroll of musical notes emits from an apartment stereo and hovers above the heads of two embracing figures. The man, clad in black pants and a white "wife beater", stands with his back facing the audience. The woman, arms wrapped around his neck, tenderly presses her cheek against his. Symbols of African culture are present throughout the work: a tribal mask sits on the cabinet in the back, and the sequined bottle emitting candlelight (similar to those made for Haitian vodoun ceremonies) illuminates the romantic dinner for two. The apartment in which they stand is cramped, humble, and rendered in inconsistent perspectives; but it exudes an air of tranquil domesticity nonetheless. This artwork by Kerry James Marshall (1955-) depicts in captivating patterns and collage-like forms exactly that which is described in the title: a poignant, sentimental, Slow Dance (1992-93).

Marshall's formative years in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, were marked by the Black Power and Civil Rights movements. His signature painterly style, which predominantly featured very dark—almost entirely black figures—was heavily influenced by his own racially-colored experiences during his youth. Combining African folk art traditions with commonly depicted tropes in the Western art academic tradition, his works confront racial prejudices and stereotypes in the underrepresented black middle class. Reminiscent of Charles Burnett’s 1978 film Killer of Sheep (in which a black couple dances to This Bitter Earth by black singer Dinah Washington), Marshall’s Slow Dance is a poignant depiction of romance and intimacy, in a time when people of colour were often marginalized in the visual sphere. In a 1998 interview with Bomb Magazine, Marshall observed:

"Black people occupy a space, even mundane spaces, in the most fascinating ways.”

Three Friends, 2018, Salman Toor

Race-related issues and other qualms about identity continue to serve as subject matter for artists. New York-based artist Salman Toor (1983-) challenges the historical and even ongoing exclusion of queer brown men from art history, interweaving aspects of Pakistani culture, American culture and queer culture into his intimate and vulnerable depictions of young gay men of colour.

In 2018, Toor painted Three Friends in response to Trump’s controversial executive order to suspend Syrian refugees indefinitely and the US Refugee Admission Program for 120 days, which was in effect from January to March of 2017. The order—commonly referred to as the “Muslim Ban”— was met with widespread criticism and protest, as well as allegations of xenophobia and racism. In this painting, Toor recreates a moment of platonic intimacy, depicting three gay men of different ethnicities sharing drinks and laughing, tucked away in the small living room of an apartment. Dimly lit only by lamplight, the space is more than its physicality; it is a place of refuge, warmth, and safety.

“They babble and dance and try to laugh off Trump’s Muslim ban by campily throwing back martinis. They exchange stories of their weekend woes, or their homophobic relatives, or what they’re watching on Netflix,” explains Toor.

To him, queer and POC identity is inherently political; and thusly his scenes of love and solitude are acts of political protest. In an era when queer friendships and partnerships are still allowed to exist only in private spaces, the act of documenting these illicit relations is a revolt in and of itself.

Carry The Weight of You (2017), Pixy Liao

Others have turned to photographic portraiture as a method of documenting intimacy. Pixy Liao is a Shanghai-born artist who currently resides in Brooklyn, New York; and her experimentational spirit and wit is a consistent permeation of her oeuvre.

Carry the Weight of You is one work out of Pixy Liao’s ongoing series Experimental Relationship (2007-), in which she stages playfully domestic scenes with Moro, her Japanese partner who happens to be five years her junior. The title is hilariously literal, but also a wholesome figuration in the context of a functioning, healthy relationship. In Liao’s brightly-coloured palette and carefully staged scenes, one can almost imagine the ridiculousness and hilarity of the couple trying to get the shot just right. Born of stubbornly inflexible patriarchal ideals, power dynamics and gender roles in heterosexual relationships are often rigidly defined in East Asian societies. Carry The Weight Of You challenges not only the very concept of a hierarchical relationship, but also the taboos of sexual expression and nudity. In the over-decade-long project that is Experimental Relationship, Liao subverts culturally propelled heteronormativity in a humorously defiant manner. While we continue our struggle to relearn physical proximity and human connection post-pandemic, Carry The Weight Of You is perhaps the dose of amusing yet provocative art we need in order to push on with the hard work that is intimacy.

Ella Wong is a Co-Founder of and Editor-in-Chief at DILF Collective.