If you have never been to the Boom Boom Room at Green Dolphin Street on a Monday night, you might be tempted to make a foray there by Bernard Colbert’s color performance portraits of JoJo and Sal-E, who strut their stuff with gay abandon at the venue. “Club kids” to the core, the two voguers are outrageous male cross-dressers who continually transform their costumes and makeup to create anti-fashion statements supplemented by their burlesqued expressions and poses. Perfect subjects for a performance photographer, Colbert enters their free-form acts in a spirit of innocent fun that can only evoke the intended laughter. Nothing can top Colbert’s outsized study of JoJo standing in a billowy white gown with his legs spread-eagled, his arms open to solicit an embrace and his lips pursed in a look of lascivious avidity—feminists and hugging aunts are advised to stay away, the rest of us are free to join the zaniness. (Michael Weinstein)
Bernard Colbert, “Getting Into Face,” shows at Gallery 203, 1579 North Milwaukee, (77)616-9943, through January 27.
Lost in Translation: A Review of Crip* at Gallery 400 The strongest works in the exhibition succinctly express the ways the artist relates to their own body while calling out how the artist’s body and body of work has been perceived or coded against norms or ideals.
