Curated by Russell Tovey, Hugh Steers: Blue Towel, Red Tank is the first European presentation of the artist and of More Life, a focused series of solo exhibitions shown on the 40th anniversary of the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis.
Born in Washington, DC, into an American political dynasty that included his uncle Gore Vidal and the Kennedys, Hugh Steers (1962-1995) produced unapologetically figurative canvases that carried the lineage of American painting into the HIV/AIDS era. Inspired by Edward Hopper, Thomas Eakins and French masters such as Édouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard, he imbued his classical compositions with the emotional intensity that characterized a queer community on the brink of destruction. Despite their devastating subject matter, Steers’s canvases are suffused with empathy, pathos, and even humor. And although he died when he was only 32 years old, he managed to create a resolved and mature body of work that illuminated the physical and psychic spaces of sickness to a larger world, despite widespread and deliberate neglect.
