Swasarnt Nerf's Gay Guides for 1949

"They were central to me in writing the Warhol biography because they were published at exactly the moment that he was coming of age as a gay man, exploring his homosexuality in an art school that actually had a small circle of out gays. All of the issues that come up in reading these Gay Guides from the 1940s were there in Warhol’s art school days. There’s this beautiful balance in these Gay Guides between an excitement about the possibilities of this particular subculture in American life, and the very real risks involved in pursuing those possibilities. That balance I believe is central to Warhol’s entire life. To this day being gay isn’t completely straightforward and easy in the United States, but of course in the 1940s, especially in his native Pittsburgh, it was outright dangerous. “There was probably nowhere worse to be gay in all of North America at the time than Pittsburgh” I stress this in my book: There was probably nowhere worse to be gay in all of North America at the time than Pittsburgh. The city police had recently created a so-called moral squad whose only goal was to catch and oppress gay men – and they pursued this task very successfully. Almost 1000 gay men were arrested. So the risks of coming out as gay in Pittsburgh just when Warhol did were extraordinary. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . There were also rewards, of course, such as those featured in these Gay Guides . Take for example their list of all the known gay clubs in North America at the time, including a gay club in Pittsburgh called The Horseshoe that we know existed and can assume Warhol frequented. These Gay Guides really give you a most amazing window into what it was like to be gay at the time. The glossary of sexual practices and gay culture alone gives a window into the world which Warhol came out in. The notion of gay culture as transgressive culture I believe was very important for Warhol’s interest in art as transgressive behaviour – I don’t think the two things can be separated. Warhol had a very strong notion that art that was worth anything should feel deeply transgressive to its audience, and of course that comes straight out of a sense that gay culture was equally transgressive. I think the notion of transgression is maybe the most important element in Warhol’s creativity, and it comes out of those twin poles of gay culture and modernist art."