Andrew Cornell Robinson
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Image of a print titled Vanitas 6 by Andrew Cornell Robinson. The composition includes a pattern of half tone dots in yellow and black rendering a bilateral composition split in half vertically, on the left is a portrait of the artist obscured by a bright neon orange paper that is collaged over the face using a printing technique called Chine-collé. The shape of this paper is in a silhouette of multiple fig leaves. On the right side of the composition is a half tone image of a human skull and flowers, aka a Vanitas. Silkscreen with Chine-collé, on cotton rag paper 24 x 36 inches 2022

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Vanitas

This series of prints explores abstracted “portraits” juxtaposed with still life Vanitas; the symbolic representation of the transience of life, and the futility of worldly pleasures. This project began as an excavation and appropriation of police surveillance footage filmed during a 1960s sting operation to arrest gay men during the summer of 1962 in Mansfield, Ohio. The police filmed men having sex in a public restroom. A cameraman hid in a closet and watched the clandestine activities through a two-way mirror. First, it’s just pissing and shitting, hand-washing and checking their hair in the mirror. But before long, the footage shows various men, mostly middle-aged or older, many straight, even married with children, black and white. The film is a perfect example of Foucault’s panopticon, in which behavior is enforced through the threat of surveillance. These films served as evidence of their desires, and led to over thirty convictions and prison.


1. Jones, William E. Tearoom, 2nd Cannons Publications, 2008.
2. Sicinski, Michael. Tearoom, Academic Hack, 2007.

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