REX
Rough Trade by Rex
Details
Rough Trade is REX's earliest published work—five pulp-format magazines produced in the 1970s that capture the raw energy of New York's leather underground. Printed cheaply, distributed hand-to-hand, and sold under the counter, these magazines established REX as the defining visual voice of gay male sexuality in the pre-AIDS era.
The drawings are direct, unapologetic, and charged with the electricity of the streets, bars, and backrooms where they circulated. Working-class men in leather, denim, and boots populate scenes of desire that range from tender to brutal—always rendered with REX's distinctive precision and unflinching honesty.
Forward by Durk Dehner
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Perfect bound
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11 x 8.5 inches
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106 pages
SHIPS BEGINNING OF AUGUST
REX
Rex is a living American artist and illustrator closely associated with homosexual fetish art of 1970s and 1980s New York and San Francisco. He avoids photographs and does not discuss his personal life. His drawings influenced gay culture through graphics made for famous nightclubs including the Mineshaft and his influence on artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe. Much censored, he has remained a shadowy figure saying that his drawings "defined who I became" and that there are "no other 'truths' out there".