And this month, the UK’s first public exhibition dedicated solely to his work opened at London’s House of Illustration (though the gallery is currently closed due to the Coronavirus crisis). In 2014, the Finnish postal service even celebrated his impact with a set of commemorative postage stamps.
The Tom of Finland Foundation has championed Laaksonen’s work so effectively that it’s now displayed at leading galleries including New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. His posthumous success has undoubtedly been bolstered by the fact that in 1984, towards the end of his life, Laaksonen founded a non-profit foundation with his friend Durk Dehner to preserve and promote his catalogue of more than 3,500 illustrations. But nevertheless, his more explicit work retains an unwavering capacity to shock. It’s also become a globally recognised brand to the extent that you can now buy a Tom of Finland tea towel on Amazon. His hyper-masculine aesthetic has influenced Freddie Mercury, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Village People, fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, and photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and Bruce Weber.
His work, which he liked to call ‘dirty drawings’, first found an audience on the gay underground in the 1950s and 1960s, but since then has edged ever closer to mainstream acceptance. For more than 50 years until his death in 1991, the artist better known as ‘Tom of Finland’ drew gay men in a way that was radical: his muscular young hunks were happy, playful and unashamedly sexual, without being menacing.
The 2005 rebooted series directed by Christopher Nolan saw method-driven actor Christian Bale physically transform himself into a bulked up Bruce Wayne, reflecting the original comic look of the muscled millionaire - but also mirroring the swathe of men’s health magazines and websites that promoted male body-building in the new century.Touko Laaksonen’s groundbreaking gay erotic art has made him a global icon. The Joker’s origin story comes at a perfect moment: clowns define our times The final film of the series was Batman and Robin (1997), which was panned by contemporary critics (particularly for multiple glistening chest and butt close-ups in the film) as was the performance of new Batman actor George Clooney, who was later to say that he “killed the franchise”.īy now Batman and Robin superhero’s suits had evolved to resemble life-sized over-stylised glossy plastic action figures, and much of the criticism levelled at the film dealt with the aggressive marketing of the toys associated with it. The introduction of nipples to Robin’s suit were controversial. This is exemplified through the changing nature of his costumes - from grim-dark leather, to bat-nipples to bespoke-emo. Having been first introduced to readers through comic books in 1939, there would be very few of us around who wouldn’t remember a time when this superhero was a massive part of popular culture - and as the years have gone by, the caped crusader has adapted to suit the era he is in.
The exhibition is billed by the theme park as the “largest official Batman exhibition in the Southern Hemisphere”, encompassing multiple bat suits, vehicles, movie props and costumes from the cinematic Batman franchise from 1989 to 2017. The Dark Knight mannequin stands resolutely, fists coiled by his side, posed ready to leap into one of the nearby batmobiles. This is the first of Batman’s many batsuits that visitors see upon entering the Gold Coast equivalent to Bruce Wayne’s bat cave, Movie World’s showcase exhibition Batman Legacy. “Nice outfit” said an approving Jack Nicholson to the caped crusader in Tim Burton’s 1989 movie version of Batman, resplendent in menacing black rubber with bulging pecs, a six pack and very pointy ears.