Tearoom: William E. Jones
In 1962, the police department of Mansfield, Ohio, set up a camera behind a two-way mirror in a local public restroom. The footage they took, lingering glances at men having sex with other men, later became evidence in a slew of sodomy trials. Some 40 years later, artist William E. Jones re-edited it into an artwork called Tearoom, currently on view at the Whitney Biennial.
The title refers to the slang for a place where men meet for anonymous sex. “For a short while,” Jones says, “in that insalubrious place, these men had a freedom. But they paid dearly for their pleasures.” The dream-like film shows men of all types, race included, meeting for liaisons in the tight confines of the stalls—an unusual grouping in the Midwest just eight years after desegregation. And while most spent their daily grind with wives and children, they don’t appear to enjoy themselves (or each other), which Jones attributes to turmoil from constrictive social pressures. Senator Larry Craig may have something to teach us about this.
Tearoom continues Jones’ interest in found footage, gay identity, and adult films. His other works have explored everything from the moments between sex scenes in porn to how Jean-Luc Godard relates to British-fetish films.
