From Angie Kordic’s extensive review for Widewalls Magazine:
Throughout history of art, the imagery depicting homosexuality and the explicit erotic appreciation of the same sex had been severely criticized by the church and had often been condemned as blasphemous and vulgar. In recent times, the notion has pushed the boundaries, challenging the rules of gallery censorship and enriching the archives of fine-art photography, becoming significantly different, but still often mistaken for pornography.
Against Nature represents a series of images about how gay men lived in Nazi Germany during World War II. Inspired by the found photographs from the period, as well as journals and articles, Silano created a sort of scrapbook project in his style, using the color combination of red, black, and white, typical for that period, evoking nationalistic movements and Nazi propaganda. Taking its name from “Paragraph 175,” part of the old German Criminal Code that made acts of homosexuality illegal, it also was the rallying cry of a homophile movement dating back to Oscar Wilde and Aestheticism in the 19th century. The work takes us back to the time where identities and memories were deleted and it examines the relationships of individuals.
View the exhibition at ClampArt
Browse all of Pacifico Silano’s work at ClampArt