Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

SOUTHERN VOICE • DECEMBER 29/1994 New design For a new gear Christmas in South Carolina—just as I remem- design and home furnishings is moving us triicfesjgf awareness that makes even the smallest budget seem verv stylish. From Pier 1 to Beverly Hall—and all the to dress even the simplest of decor. you put them? I would suggest that if it's son is the perfect place for that frame or what-not. bedroom does ogy of sleep— for example, reach to turn this is the last room you see; as morning comes, it’s the first room you see. Subcon sciously, the rics and color of the room can sometimes govern a good night's sleep. Plate favorite objects on a bedside table, where you can enjoy them morning and night. So as you reach for the light, sur things that make you feel good. Dressing the bed with the rig important, and now with the a’ mades, the choices are unlimited. Putting fabrics to gether is made easy by good displays and A-B-C shop ping. But use your creative thoughts by putting to gether your own combinations. For example, your Ralph Lauren spread with your Linens and Things taupe flannel sheets, brought together with your cus tom-made bed skirt, makes this bed a great retreat! Bathroom do's and don'ts are always very black- and-white to me. If the bathroom is small with no stor age, then regardless of how great the display is at >- Continued on page 42 Reversing the roles by MICHAEL KAPE Artist Robert Sherer angers sexists—and incites censors— with his pointings of mole nudes in classically female poses What is it about Robert Sherer's paintings that has so many people upset? How is it that in just a few short years this openly gay artist has found himself in three censorship flaps, most recently earlier this month at an exhibition in Birmingham, Ala.? Robert Sherer paints nudes. Male nudes—in poses tra ditionally reserved for women. And he does it very well. Perhaps a lesser artist, one who did not appropriate the style and tone of the old masters, might not evoke such response. Yet because his brilliantly executed paintings arouse an emotional wallop, they manage to provoke controversy. In 1990, at an exhibition of five artists at Cleveland's Lake Erie College, the gallery director called Sherer a week after his paintings went up and asked if he could cover one up for a day. "He thought one of my paintings was offen sive," recalls Sherer. "A group of children was coming that day, so would I mind if this one painting was covered up? I was very naive to all this censorship stuff at the time. I agreed. I said, 'No problem. You can cover it up. It's only going to be for an afternoon.' "Then he calls me the next day," Sherer continues, "and tells me he has decided he's going to take down all of my works. And I said, 'What do you mean take down?' And he said, 'I've already done it. I've taken your works off the wall and put them in the basement I don't care what you think. I'm doing the right thing because your work is offensive.'" Sherer says that what angered him most about the inci dent was that the other four artists in the show took no stand on the censorship. "None of them defended me," Sherer says. "They were heterosexual, and basically had the atti tude of, 'Well, you were asking for it because you painted male nudes. If you had painted female nudes like we've all done, you could get away with it.' Then, a week later, the guy doing the censoring got a bit braver. He censored one of the other paintings as offensive. Then, all of a sudden, the heterosexuals were saying, 'Oh my God! Oh, censor ship is bad!' And they all jumped on the censorship band wagon. But they were unwilling to do it for me." In 1992, at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, Sherer and his fellow graduate students were given an opportu nity to mail out a postcard announcing the exhibition of their work. Only Sherer wasn't allowed to mail his out on campus because a liberal arts dean thought the painting on the card—two nude men, one asleep on a bed and the other sitting in a chair—was offensive. A brouhaha ensued, even tually bringing in the ACLU. "The images I saw on the cards that came out before mine were invariably sexist poses," Sherer says. "One in particular was of a nude woman lying down, her legs spread in a very unbecoming position, and a pack of wild dogs were sniffing and licking her body—and [the university] saw no problem with that image! But just because there's a little, tiny weenie that you can see in my painting, it was enough to cause the trouble." On Dec. 2,1994, Sherer was again censored, this time at his first exhibit ever in his home state of Alabama. At Gal lery 2030 in Birmingham, 10 of Sherer's works were on dis play. But his paintings were deemed inappropriate to be seen at a fundraiser being held on behalf of A Baby's Place, a foster care service for children with HIV. Glenda Harris, who works with A Baby's Place, covered the works because she did not want to "offend people who give kids with HIV money and medicine." "Yeah, like who gives the money?" retorts Sherer. >*- Continued on page 40 BILL TOMEY