The Philosophical Art of Self Defense

The Philosophical Art of Self Defense was a book I made in the early spring of 1990 in the Amit Hotel on Mission Street in San Francisco, right after I stopped living at the Cheap Art Store for a while. (I eventually returned.)  The title comes from a self defense manual by Bruce Lee (whose actual title in Cantonese meant Beginner’s Gung Fu.)  Many of the images employed in the collage come from the same manual.  Other pictures are drawn from a police guide to handcuffing a suspect.  There are also pictures of bears and birds of prey, from the pages of National Geographic, and Batman & Robin going through one of their many relationship crises.  The détourned text comes from writings by Raoul Vaneigem, Adrienne Rich, William Burroughs and Kathy Acker, among others.

Hatts17

Chris Hatton (aka Hatts17) is a physical trainer, as well as a fitness and amateur porn model, whom I’ve only just belatedly discovered.  He resides sixty seven kilometers due west of London in Reading, Berkshire, and is twenty six years old.  I thought it was a fairly safe assumption to identify him as queer or gay, even though he seems to aim his online workouts to women.  Turns out he's straight, or so I've been informed by one of his fans, and I've no good reason to doubt him.  I’m also pretty sure he hasn’t submitted to any cosmetic surgery, so that big butt is a result of genetics and a great deal of concentration and training. Let’s say he has willed it.

Hugh Auchincloss Steers

(12 June 1962 – 1 March 1995)

 1 Crows 1988

2 Tribute to El Greco 1988

3 White Shirt and tie 1988

 3 White Shirt and tie 1988

I was first introduced to Hugh Steer’s work by Jack Waters and Peter Cramer, friends in common.  I never met Mr Steers.  His work owes an obvious debt to Pierre Bonnard and his hot intimist vision, but Steer’s vision is unambiguously Queer.  He attended Hotchkiss in northwestern CT, a very exclusive prep school, where he was known as something of a prodigy, and received his undergraduate degree from Yale and graduate degree from Skowhegan in Maine.  Though he came from privilege he mostly benefited from it only in his education.  While he was very much connected to the Lower East Side Scene of the 1980s he never achieved the recognition of Straight male painters, like Duncan Hannah and Walter Robinson (both of whose work I happen to love).  He died from the effects of HIV and its treatments in 1995.  The paintings reproduced above and below are placed, top to bottom, in chronological order and were painted between the years 1988 and 1993.  Interestingly, the only female figure I found depicted on a recent search was one in the act of learning or practicing self defense.

5 Showers II 1990  

6 Door to Tub 1990

7 Shadow Box II 1991

8 Futon Couch 1991

9 Bath Curtain 1993

10 Mr Coffee 1993

11 Pockets 1993

12 Hospital Bed 1993