Appropriation should ultimately be about transformation: “If I just scan the photograph of the nude body,” Silano said, “then how is that different from the initial source?” That’s why Silano’s work is more about what is obscured from view - not just that the penises are always eliminated from his work, but the men in the photos who may have died from AIDS as well. It’s also about “loss and longing,” as he put it, referencing his uncle who was gay and died from AIDS, and who was erased from the family. His work is always about the gay male existence and society’s perception of masculine identity. “It’s important everything is coming from the same source material,” he said.
Silano makes his images solely from these magazines: The wide desert vistas and raging rivers seen in his collages come from the same publications that the naked men do. How I Made This: Pierre Yovanovitch's Mama Bear Chair How Mike Gibson Became Artist-in-Residence at the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden
