“Round Hole Square Peg” Is a Sexy, Thrilling Celebration of Queer Art

The latest installment of the international photo competition captures a provocative world of beefcakes, religious icons, and “tranimals.”by Lester Fabian Brathwaite 2/7/2020

“I am the only fellow of the American Film Institute that’s ever been inducted into the Gay Porn Hall of Fame,” Phil Tarley tells me at his booth at Photo L.A., California’s longest-running international photo art fair, standing among a selection of provocative and unequivocally queer images. “I like to push that sometimes.”

That dubious distinction, this gleeful mixing of the highbrow and lowbrow, runs through much of Tarley’s work and the selections he curates for “Round Hole Square Peg,” a photo exhibition and competition described as “the only queer presentation at any of the major art fairs.”

Opening at Long Hall Gallery in West Hollywood, Saturday, 2/8/2020 at 6 –9:30