By way of acknowledging today’s Pride parade in New York City (Sunday, June 24) artcritical features Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano LA, the two-part exhibition at Hunter College Art Galleries’ 68th Street and Hudson Street venues. This pioneering survey of over 50 artists and performers from the late 1960s through early 1990s, originated at LA MOCA and is touring courtesy of Independent Curators International. The show’s curators, C. Ondine Chavoya and David Evans Frantz , have adopted painter, performance artist, designer and “guerrilla” muralist Edmundo “Mundo” Meza (1955–1985) as a kind of muse for the exhibition. This photo of Mundo and his androgynous friend Jim Aguilar by Anthony Friedkin comes from the latter’s groundbreaking portfolio, The Gay Essay, 1969–73. Jim, in turn, has been described as a muse for the photographer himself, who authored a number of deeply touching portraits of this beautiful youth. DAVID COHEN
Anthony Friedkin, Jim and Mundo, Montebello, East Los Angeles, 1972. Gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 inches. ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries. Courtesy of Anthony Friedkin
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