Photographs Bruce LaBruce

 

LaBruce was an early producer of homo punk fanzines which helped launch the so-called Homocore or Queercore movement. In the 1990s he expanded his artistic activities to include filmmaking with the release of such films as "No Skin Off My Ass" (1991), "Hustler White" (1996), and "Skin Flick" (1998/1999). His films have appeared in major film festivals including Sundance, Cannes, London, Berlin, Dublin, Thessaloniki, Toronto, Vancouver, Tokyo and San Francisco. Most recently, LaBruce has been using photography to further his artistic vision with shows in the US, Canada and Europe. His photographs also regularly appear in porn and fashion magazines such as Honcho, Dutch and Index.

 

LaBruce's photography, like his films, explores, exposes and ultimately challenges dominant cultural expectations of sexual behavior. He showcases radical sexual practices with underrepresented model "types" in order to question our attitudes on pleasure, pain, beauty, life and everything in between. His work assimilates strong influences from the world of high fashion and commercial advertising to the low cultural genres of pornography and trash TV. By constantly shinning a bright light into the dark crevices of human thought, LaBruce's work challenges societal norms and expands on notions of permissible thought. While often crude, rude, and decadent, LaBruce's work is unapologetic and ultimately achieves a level of beauty unique in contemporary photography. LaBruce shows with Bailey Fine Arts in Toronto and MC MAGMA in Milan and has also had shows in NYC at Alleged Gallery and in Vancouver at the Pitt Gallery.