[Two Men in Silhouette]
Sexuality and mortality—which many would say are central preoccupations of humankind—are key to Morrisroe’s biography and art. The son of a drug-addicted mother, a teenage hustler, and a precocious punk queer, Morrisroe carried a bullet (shot by a disgruntled john) in his chest from the age of eighteen and consequently walked with a limp that added one more element to his outsider self-image. Sex and death were persistent themes in his work, with pronounced poignancy after his 1986 AIDS diagnosis. In this work, Morrisroe has taken a page from a gay S&M magazine, cut out the shapes of two naked men, and used the sheet as a negative to print a unique image in which the figures—literally absent—appear as dark silhouettes against a netherworld of sexual activity.
Artwork Details
- Title: [Two Men in Silhouette]
- Artist: Mark Morrisroe (American, 1959–1989)
- Date: ca. 1987
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 28.4 x 20.8 cm (11 3/16 x 8 3/16 in.)
Sheet: 35.4 x 27.6 cm (13 15/16 x 10 7/8 in.) - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2009
- Object Number: 2009.353
- Rights and Reproduction: © The Estate of Mark Morrisroe (Ringier Collection) at Fotomuseum Winterthur
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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