The Logic of the Lure

The attraction of a wink, a nod, a discarded snapshotsuch feelings permeate our lives, yet we usually dismiss them as insubstantial or meaningless. WithThe Logic of the Lure, John Paul Ricco argues that it is precisely such fleeting, erotic, and even perverse experiences that will help us create a truly queer notion of ethics and aesthetics, one that recasts sociality and sexuality, place and finitude in ways suggested by the anonymity and itinerant lures of cruising. Shifting our attention from artworks to the work that art does, from subjectivity to becoming, and from static space to taking place, Ricco considers a variety of issues, including the work of Doug Ischar, Tom Burr, and Derek Jarman and the minor architecture of sex clubs, public restrooms, and alleyways.

John Paul Ricco is an assistant professor of art history at Texas Tech University. He has curated several contemporary art exhibitions on gender, sexuality, and AIDS.