Vince Patti & Dick Wagner

"Every time I removed the drawer and reached for my naked men, I saw the darkness at the core of our house and suddenly doubted the white walls, the tidy rooms in which I lived. To be homosexual was to invite ostracism and ridicule, and I would have done just about anything to escape my need to masturbate to images of men. I bargained with myself, made promises not to, devised equations of abstinence and reward. But no sooner would I muster my resolve than I’d find myself in a haze of amnesia, a couple of magazines spread before me, opened to my favorite pages."

- Bernard Cooper, XY Magazine, August 1996

6 Month Space is pleased to announce Vince and Dick: Favorite Pages, a two-person exhibition by Vince Patti and Dick Wagner. The exhibition includes a selection of recent work in which the artists train their gaze onto pornographic images of men, transmuting idealized depictions of masculinity into kitsch objects.

Patti sources images of gay webcam videos from pop-ups, tube aggregators, and Tumblr. He encloses the printed screenshots within trophy cases, both wall-mounted and affixed to pedestals covered in popcorn ceiling stucco. The sculptures commemorate the suburban homes where the videos were filmed.

Wagner culls imagery from an inherited archive of vintage adult magazines. After cutting up the pictures, he collages them on chairs, lamps, ashtrays, and other household items. These objects combine to produce a domestic mise-en-scène set against a backdrop of red brick wallpaper.

Vince Patti (b. 1992, Berkeley, CA) lives and works in New York where he received his BA from NYU in 2015. His work has been included in A Loving Copy, Chinatown Soup (2015) and several group exhibitions at NYU galleries.

Dick Wagner (b. 1992, Queens, NY) lives and works in New York where he received his BFA from SVA in 2014. His work has been included in the SVA Mentors Exhibition (2014), A SYNTHETIC WOUND, Cooper Union (2015), and Insert for Comfort, Librus Gallery (2016).