'A little drag' reveals personal sides of famous illustrators Antonio Lopez and Juan Ramos

With the mainstreaming of drag through “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, our generation sometimes misunderstands that our liberating gender-bending expressions are new to us, and by US. This exhibition affirms that it started generations ago.

This exhibition is curated by Cooney in collaboration with Paul Caranicas, partner of Ramos Authored years. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but I’ve had a lot of false starts,” Kalanikas told me on the phone. “Antonio and Juan have always been interested in all alternative versions of beauty and different ways of approaching masculinity, femininity and ambiguity, so we decided to call it ‘Kind of A Drag’ and include portraits of men with long hair and jewels on, or women with excessive makeup, which will reflect the idea of ​​drag,” he explained.

from ‘061s, the duo was popular in the fashion world with Karl Lagerfeld and Charles James (who, Caranicas says, had a big influence on both of them), and for Interview and Vogue make illustrations where they stand alone or next to edited photos by the likes of David Bailey and Peter Lindbergh.

Juan was the photographer for both, at least at first. “In ’60s, when they Having a drag party at their house, Juan is going to be the photographer because he has a 33 mm camera, he’s a great photographer,” Caranicas said. “And then in ’42s, when Antonio really got himself into photography and bought Instamatic, it made it easier for him to express that side of yourself. ” Taken at 80 the iconic Paris nightclub L’alcazar The photo of the performer, her face too close for discomfort, really captures the intimacy and joy of the party scene of their era.

“Juan and Antonio are known for breaking down barriers, and they were one of the first illustrators to use color models,” Cooney said, pointing to images like 80 personal research by Pat Cleveland, or 80 for Interview magazine.” But actually, because they It’s Puerto Rican gay men, and they’re just there to break the line,” he added. Caranicas points out that the duo is often frustrated with the resistance of American publishers to diversity, “somehow, throughout the media.” And the Puritanist tendencies across America showed in the magazines, they were not open to this idea. “Eventually they both moved to Paris, where they found freedom that was unattainable in America at the time.