Photographer Luke Gilford says his earliest reminiscences are of rodeos. In household journeys from their house in Colorado to help his father, who competed and served as a rodeo decide, Gilford remembers the animals, the landscapes, the folks, and the outfits — snakeskin boots, Stetson hats, and belt buckles.
“My dad’s belt buckles were so huge — bigger than my head,” Gilford informed Hyperallergic. “And the people too. The big hair, the lipstick, the denim, and all of those pastel geographies.” Then the household moved to California, away from the Southwestern epicenter of the game, and Gilford’s father broke his neck and again, ending his rodeo profession. The son grew as much as turn into a profitable photographer and director in Los Angeles.
However in some unspecified time in the future in his youth, Gilford had already began to tug away from the rodeo, realizing how patriarchal and “inherently homophobic” it may very well be.
“Which is ironic because it is such a kind of drag performance — this traditional drag of America,” stated Gilford. “I really love the Southwest, part of me really missed it, but I also knew it wasn’t really for me.”
In 2016, Gilford found the International Gay Rodeo Association (IGRA), the place cowboys can compete with out limiting expressions of their queer identification. Started in the 1970s, these rodeos operate nearly precisely like their conventional counterparts — there are customary occasions comparable to bull using, calf roping, and barrel racing — with just a few quirky additions: “steer decorating” (a crew of two has to tie a ribbon onto a steer), “wild drag racing” (a cowboy and cowgirl in drag should get a steer throughout a end line earlier than mounting it and making an attempt to experience it again), and “goat dressing” (a two-person crew has to get a pair of underwear onto a goat).
Gilford started touring to IGRA rodeos in his spare time and photographing the folks there. These images (beforehand compiled right into a 2020 book) are at the moment on view at the SN37 Gallery in Manhattan’s Seaport District by means of August 28.
Gilford stated that discovering the IGRA was a private “revelation,” however he additionally acknowledged its wider significance, particularly within the period of Donald Trump’s presidency.
“The nation is becoming more and more divided, and that’s what’s drawing me to this community,” Gilford stated, including that the queer rodeos reject pervasive distinctions between liberals and conservatives; city and rural. Together with his images, he hopes to make folks replicate on different methods of life, particularly these of us who reside in cosmopolitan facilities like New York Metropolis.
“This is a really strong and beautiful community,” Gilford stated of the cowboys who compete within the IGRA. “I think this is something that is really celebrated in cities — our chosen families and our tribes — and I think that’s something that people can relate to. I hope this is a reminder that these things can exist anywhere.”
“I want these portraits to really be evidence of something beyond this place, of a way of life that isn’t just about image,” Gilford continued, including that along with being image-obsessed, NYC exalts standardized types of magnificence. And Gilford is all too acquainted with these requirements, having photographed figures comparable to Bella Hadid and Christina Aguilera and labored on campaigns for manufacturers together with Maybelline and Valentino.
Similar to the celeb topics featured in his different work, the cowboys in Gilford’s images are poised and assured, nearly showing as celebrities themselves.
“It feels like this is a community that deserves that treatment, to be photographed on film and printed in the dark room and their portraits blown up in this size,” he stated. “Usually only rich, wealthy, powerful people get that treatment, and I really wanted to extend that to this world, too.”
Luke pointed to a few images grouped collectively on the gallery’s higher stage as private favorites. On the left, a determine stands with a gash in his denim shirt; within the heart, a unique topic locations their arm, in a solid, over their shoulder; and on the appropriate, one other stands tall and proud, holding his arm in a sling. All three males pictured had been injured in rodeo occasions.
“This notion of rugged individualism and conventional masculinity that dominates in cowboy mythology — these show that there are also queer people, and queer people who are so resilient,” Gilford stated. “These people may not conform to the traditional image of a cowboy, but they have a shimmering silver and gold champion belt buckle.”
However the picture of the queer cowboy will not be new, and in the previous few years, it has turn into more and more common. Lil Nas X grew to become a megastar after his music “Old Town Road” hit the Billboard #1 spot, solely to be removed from the Billboard country chart, sparking a contentious debate over what music — and extra importantly whose music — is taken into account “country,” even if the historically White style has grown increasingly influenced by the traditionally Black genres of hip-hop and rap over the past decade or so. And as Lil Nas X ascended the ladder of fame, Orville Peck, along with his identity-hiding fringed masks and bellowing classical nation voice, has grown into an indie darling.
“I think there is something inherently camp about Western culture that I think pop music loves to play with, but I find that it often is very hollow,” Gilford stated. “This is a way of life that exists beyond image or beyond the frame. That’s what I’m trying to touch on here: There’s real truth here and these are real lives, these are real people out there in rural America living as queer cowboys and ranching. These are brutal landscapes and brutal places sometimes.”
One of these folks is Lee Knight, who grew up in California earlier than shifting to Colorado and changing into a rodeo competitor. “I’m living my dream as a cowboy,” Knight informed Hyperallergic. The IGRA supplied Knight an entry level into the game, and the affiliation’s tight-knit neighborhood helped them learn to experience bulls. Moreover its inner tradition, Knight additionally sees the affiliation as altering the notion of who generally is a cowboy.
“You’ve got all these Western films, you’ve got portraits, but you don’t see people like me,” they stated. “However, it’s people like me who have been around for a long time. Being a gay cowboy is not a new thing.” Knight additionally talked about the truth that Black cowboys have additionally been erased from Western lore, though, from the start, many were Black.
“I think the American cowboy is such an iconic and mythologized figure,” Gilford stated. “I hope that this will offer up a more modern and nuanced version of that. I think it’s time that the classic American cowboy be updated as people of color, trans people, gender nonconforming people — that’s where America’s going and in a way has always been.”
This text, half of a collection targeted on LGBTQ+ artists and artwork actions, is supported by Swann Auction Galleries.
Swann’s upcoming sale “LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History,” that includes works and materials by Tom of Finland, Peter Hujar, Robert Mapplethorpe, Oscar Wilde, Andy Warhol, and lots of extra will happen on August 18, 2022.
