ARTISTS
AMIR NIKRAVAN & DON BACHARDY
In rising art star Amir Nikravan's work the personal is universal. While he is often his own subject, particularly in his colorful oils, his canvases tremble with bigger questions of identity and masculinity, fantasy and reality. Now 25, Nikravan (standing) likes to describe his work as a "forum to subvert the rigid rules and codes of monolithic gay culture," an endeavor he shares with a community of queer Los Angeles–based artists.In his latest series—one work, simply titled Ass, has the exotic beauty of Mapplethorpe's flower portraits—Nikravan isolates parts of the human anatomy in netting as a way of moving beyond gender; when the netting is removed it resembles a human chrysalis: androgynous, ethereal, and fleeting.
As a result of this year's surprise art-house hit Chris & Don. A Love Story, 74-year-old Los Angeles artist Don Bachardy (seated) has become a symbol of the endurance of same-sex love against the odds. Bachardy was only 18 when he met the English writer Christopher Isherwood—who was then 48—but they quickly moved in together, and remained a couple until the writer's death in 1986. For years, Isherwood was best known for The Berlin Stories, which ultimately morphed into Cabaret, one of the great musicals of the 20th century; now, he and Bachardy may be best remembered as one of the century's greatest love stories.
