A collection reexamined

WHEN Robert E. Holmes showed works from his collection of African American, Latino and gay art at East Los Angeles College in 2002, a review in the Los Angeles Times pointed out a curious omission.

Though the explanatory texts and an accompanying monograph discussed racial themes, nowhere did the written materials address the obvious homoerotic currents in some of the art.

“But, disappointingly, gay culture goes unremarked, even though it’s self-evident in the show,” reviewer Christopher Knight wrote.

Holmes, a retired music industry executive who is black and gay, had co-curated the show and was the author of the monograph. Knight’s observation floored him.

Had he subconsciously censored himself because the show was at a predominantly Latino community college? Or, worse, was he behaving like a man on the down-low, afraid to publicly acknowledge the gay themes in his collection, and by extension his own homosexuality?

Since then, he says, he has been looking for a way to make amends. “You Don’t Know Me Like That,” which opened Feb. 1 and continues through March 11 at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, is Holmes’ effort to confront the gay themes in the art he has collected over nearly four decades, beginning when he was a law student at New York University.

Holmes is showing many of the obviously homoerotic works in the show, such as Steven Williams’ “Take the ‘A’ Train” and Roberto Gil de Montes’ “Yellow Nude (Nude Male),” for the first time. But the exhibition, which includes work by Bob Thompson, Gronk, Elizabeth Catlett, Charles White, James Morphesis and others, is about much more than simply being gay. Holmes tries to contextualize gay culture alongside the other minority group to which he belongs -- African Americans -- and relate both those cultures to the dynamic fusions of Latino art.

The connections are not always obvious, and that’s just the way Holmes, who curated the show, intends it. Many, but not all, of the young studs portrayed by the artists are people of color. Some, but not all, of the black and Latino people are young studs. “Why did I buy this and not that? That but not this? In my case, being both black and gay has given me a particular motivation, a motivation that other art buyers who are also black and gay may or may not similarly possess,” Holmes writes in an essay for the exhibit.

The show, timed to coincide with Black History Month, opens with a visual elegy to Martin Luther King. In Kenneth Matthew’s watercolor, an image of King’s profile is spattered with blobs of pale red and blue, beautiful until you realize what they symbolize. Above the Matthew watercolor is a poster for a 1980 gay pride event in San Francisco.

In only a few of the 54 works from Holmes’ collection do the themes of race and sexuality directly collide.

One of these is Carlos Almaraz’s “Struggle of Mankind,” in which a naked brown man sits astride a naked black man in what could be a friendly wrestling match, a rape or a fight to the death. “Black Orpheus” by Deni Ponty shows a naked black man closing in on a cowering white man. Miguel Angel Reyes’ two brown-skinned wrestlers seem to be entwined in a standard head-to-crotch hold, but the piece is titled “Suspicious Activity.”

Blacks, Latinos and gays have all been discriminated against by mainstream America but have sometimes regarded each other with wariness, creating a long list of conundrums for anyone who belongs to more than one of the groups.

“There was that issue with ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’ Even though one black person doesn’t speak for the whole race, and nor should it be interpreted that way, I thought this would be a good way to open up the issue of homophobia in the black and Latino communities that hasn’t been addressed,” says Holmes, who was a top executive in the music divisions of Sony Pictures when deteriorating vision caused by glaucoma forced him to retire in 2002.

Because he is legally blind, Holmes these days is attracted to art with bright colors and bold strokes. “You Don’t Know Me Like That” by Raul “Duro” Cordero shows a man with basketball in hand plunging through a graffiti-covered subway car. The exhibit takes its name from the piece, and for Holmes, “You Don’t Know Me Like That” is also a retort to people who insist on stereotyping him.

“You know what? Everyone isn’t what they seem. Just because I’m a lawyer doesn’t mean I can’t dance hip-hop. Just because I can argue a case in a courtroom doesn’t mean I don’t listen to heavy metal,” Holmes says. “Sometimes minorities draw the same conclusions about gays. Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m weak. Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m not a racist.”

The iconic picture of the show may be Dan McCleary’s “Young Man in a Blue Hooded Parka.” The man is undeniably handsome: Many gay men have asked Holmes if he knows the identity of the model. But is he gay or straight? Latino, black, Asian or a little of all three? Arms folded, eyes turned inward, he isn’t about to tell us.

weekend@latimes.com

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‘You Don’t Know Me Like That’

What: Subtitled “Images of Race and Sexuality From the Collection of Robert E. Holmes”

Where: The Village at Ed Gould Plaza, Advocate & Gochis Galleries, 1125 N. McCadden Place, L.A.

When: Hours: 6 to 10 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays.

Ends March 11.

Info: (323) 860-7302; www.lagaycenter.org