Thought-police brutality: out artist Alex Donis discusses his sexy new paintings�which the city of Los Angeles says are too controversial to display
Derrick Mathis The Advocate
"A police officer walked in one day and started asking me questions." Alex Donis is recalling his experience while hanging his artwork at the Watts Towers Arts Center in Los Angeles. "He asked me if the paintings were going to travel to the academy. I said, `What academy?' And he said, `The police academy. People should see this.'"
Nobody saw Donis's exhibition, though. Before it could be viewed by the public, his art was taken down without his knowledge. The reason: too homoerotic.
Realistically rendered in oil and enamel on Plexiglas and canvas, War's 14 paintings pack an undeniable punch. They depict Los Angeles Police Department officers doing some hot and heavy disco dancing, each with his own favorite homeboy from the 'hood.
The work had been commissioned by the arts center, a publicly funded organization located next to the city's famed Watts Towers, named for the mostly African-American and Latino community where they stand. Donis says the center knew what it was in for. Director Mark Greenfield counters that community outrage, not prudery, prompted him to take the pictures down four days before War's opening reception, with the support of the city department of Cultural Affairs general manager, Margie Reese. Greenfield and Reese claim that community members threatened violent protests.
Donis, 37 and openly gay, is no stranger to violent reactions to his artwork. His 1997 exhibit at the Galeria de la Raza in San Francisco--which featured paintings of Jesus Christ kissing Lord Rama, Martin Luther King Jr. kissing a Ku Klux Klansman, and Madonna tonguing Mother Teresa--caused such public outrage that the gallery was vandalized twice in three weeks. In 1999, during a two-year artist residency in Sydney that he'd won on Greenfield's recommendation, he plastered the city with a poster depicting a virile aboriginal stud and a well-muscled Aussie stockman locked in an erotic kiss. It didn't help matters that Donis did this during the country's highly publicized and emotionally charged move for racial reconciliation involving the Australian government's return of land to aboriginal people.
Nonetheless, Donis, a former five-year employee of the Watts Towers Arts Center, was devastated when he was told that War had been taken down. The solo exhibition was slated to be part of the reopening festivities of the towers, an event guaranteed to attract thousands. The giant spires had been closed to the public for over 7 1/2 years due to extensive damage from the Northridge earthquake in Southern California.
"I contacted the National Coalition Against Censorship immediately," says the Latino artist. "They told me to gather signatures. On the day of the re-opening of the towers, I went there with a drag queen named Carmen. She showed up with a giant feather boa, a big wig, and sequined gown, and we started handing out flyers and getting people to sign our petition. We garnered over 200 signatures that day and throughout the weekend at the Watts drum and jazz festival."
The artist got the idea for the War exhibit two years ago after he came across a book titled To Protect and to Serve: The LAPD's Century of War in the City of Dreams and became fascinated with the relationship between the police and gangs in Los Angeles. "I started seeing the LAPD and gangs as rivals and very much having this sense of culture within each group," says Donis. "The different types of armaments that they wear, insignias, and colors. It's very relevant in the machismo that's embedded in gangs and the police department."
The artist is still in talks with the city to get the War paintings into a public art space. "I'm in the process of negotiating with the city to reinstall the exhibition at the Barnsdall Municipal Art Gallery," says Donis. "But the Barnsdall space is closed for two years for renovations. So I'm hoping that the exhibit will travel there in two years or so. But it still hasn't been agreed upon. They haven't said yes."
War is now being exhibited at the Frumkin/Duvai Gallery in Santa Monica, Calif., through January 12, at which point Donis plans to take the show on tour at galleries across the country, even though several collectors have offered to buy the entire collection of paintings. But while preparing for War's travel plans, Donis is also laying the groundwork for his next project."It'll probably focus on hatred in society and what the September 11 tragedy has done in terms of mixing patriotism and hatred," says the artist. "Like how our society is kind of moving toward another plane in its attitudes towards war."
Mathis also writes for L.A. Weekly.Find more on Alex Donis and links to related Internet sites at www.advocate.com
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