Queerguru has written about Brit heartthrob actor Russell Tovey’s passion for Art before (https://queerguru.com/brit-actor-russell-tovey-gallerist-robert-diament-talk-queer-art/) but now he has taken it one step further with Life is Excellent. It’s a feature-length documentary chronicling the inimitable life of one of his heroes, David Robilliard — a radical queer poet and artist who died of AIDS at the young age of 36 in 1988.
The documentary’s subject, was igniting the queer art scene in London long before Tovey had even turned double digits, but as Tovey explores the fiery life of the man he never met, and “who [Robbiliard] drank with, worked with and shagged,” Tovey uncovers the impact of characters you never get the chance to meet and the legacy of late 19th-century queer artists as trailblazers, cherished ancestors and ultimately, an unlucky generation whose stories were cut short by an unforgiving epidemic.
The film is Tovey’s latest partnership with WePresent, the arts platform of WeTransfer which aims to bring attention to archival works while examining their resonance today, and it will be released this summer.
Then next up will be a series of four live performances entitled “BLUE NOW,” a tribute to the artwork “Blue” by the British artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman. The 1993 film features an unchanging screen of Yves Klein blue accompanied by voices that deliver a collage of fragments from Jarman’s diary, a visualization of the gradual onset of blindness as he battles with HIV. “Blue” was Jarman’s final feature film, completed only months before his death of AIDS-related complications.
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