A Tom of Finland pencil drawing depicting a cowboy in a tight white shirt and stetson facing another cowboy wearing a dark shirt and stetson

Luke Turner

Saturday Talks Series

Luke Turner looks at the art of Tom of Finland and Beryl Cook through the bisexual gaze. Our society has, historically, forced the bisexual to peer out of a closet of loneliness, frustrated desire, and taboo, creating lurid stereotypes that we're oversexed, rapacious. Therefore, the outré bawdiness in the work in this exhibition has a curious, specific appeal to the bisexual eye that roves and wanders one step removed from hetero conventionality and queer liberation. 

This event forms part of our Saturday Talks series, in which artists, curators and writers lead personal responses to Beryl Cook / Tom of Finland. These talks, readings and performances are an opportunity to explore specific aspects of the exhibition, from 'bad taste' to class tourism, masculinity and sexuality in the military, and London's lost queer spaces.

  1. Luke Turner is a writer and editor based in London. He co-founded the influential music website The Quietus and has contributed to the Guardian, Dazed & Confused, Vice, NME, Q, Mojo, Monocle, Nowness, Somesuch Stories and the BBC among others. His first book, Out of the Woods, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. 

    His most recent book Men At War explores a wartime experience that embraces sex, lust and the body as much as tactics and weaponry. Part-memoir, part-historical exploration of British Second World War masculinity and sexuality, Turner argues that the only way we can really understand the Second World War is to get to grips with the complexity of the lives and identities of those who fought and endured it.

  2. Tom of Finland, Untitled, 1964. © 1964 Tom of Finland Foundation.

Suggested donation £5

Saturday 6 July 2024, 3–3.30 pm

Studio Voltaire
1A Nelsons Row
London SW4 7JR


Open Wednesday–Sunday, 10 am–5 pm.

Registered Charity No: 1082221. Registered Company No: 03426509. VAT No: GB314268026