How Artist Amy Sherald Queered History's Most Famous Kiss
(CNN) — It might be the most famous kiss ever caught on camera — the US sailor wrapping his arms around a woman in a white medical uniform in Times Square, her body folded dramatically into his.
Taken amid the jubilation of V-J Day, which effectively brought World War II to an end, Alfred Eisenstaedt's black-and-white image was first published in Life magazine in 1945 and has since become a fixture in popular culture.It eventually made its way into artist Amy Sherald's studio, where the celebrated painter draws upon different visual touchstones in American history to inform her portraits of everyday Black life — representation that has been largely excluded from art history.In her new painting "For love, and for country," Sherald co-opts Eisenstaedt's image to make a bold statement of love: two Black male sailors sharing a deeply passionate kiss, their eyes closed as they become lost in the moment.
It's a monumental work and, at over 10 feet tall, larger than what Sherald usually paints. At a time when gay and transgenderrights in the US are being endangered by a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills, the artist said she wanted her friends to feel "safe" through her work."We're in a place where same-sex marriages are being threatened and where, oftentimes, there's fatal violence against transgender and non-binary people," she said in a video call. "Affection within that community is policed, and so the politics of public pleasure comes into play."There's a long history of censorship and erasure that's weighed down the gay kiss, and it's often excluded from view.
I think we're living in a moment now where the deployment of a kiss — and specifically a gay kiss — could be used as a juggernaut."Over the past decade, Sherald has.
