A new T-Shirt released to coincide with the book Queering the Circle into a Spiral: Eternity, Temporality and the Art of Stuart Sandford by Stephen Baycroft & Stuart Sandford and featuring the cover image.
Digital print on organic cotton T-Shirt, made of 100% organic ring-spun cotton. Fabric weight: 180 gsm. Available in pink cotton. Limited run of 50.
S 36/38" // M38/40" // L 41/43" // XL 43/45"
Available now.
Excited to announce my first ever solo exhibition in San Francisco! Opening September 4th at the Bob Mizer Foundation and running through November 29th 2025. More details below.
Stuart Sandford: In Youth Is Pleasure
September 4 – November 29, 2025
The Bob Mizer Foundation
920 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA
The Bob Mizer Foundation Announces San Francisco Debut of Photographer Stuart Sandford with In Youth Is Pleasure
San Francisco, CA — The Bob Mizer Foundation is thrilled to present the San Francisco debut of UK/Mexico City–based photographer Stuart Sandford. His solo exhibition, In Youth Is Pleasure, will be on view from September 4 through November 29, 2025, at the Foundation’s exhibition space in the Tenderloin.
Drawing from his recently released monograph Stuart Sandford XX, celebrating 20 years of his 35mm photography work, this exhibition offers a stunning selection of photographs that explore the beauty, vulnerability, and sensuality of youth. With images that range from quiet moments in sunlit bedrooms to the haziness of post-coital intimacy, Sandford captures the emotional and physical landscape of being young and alive.
Sandford’s work captures the exhilarating essence of youth, celebrating the joy, freedom, and intimacy of being young and alive. Through his evocative portraits of friends and lovers, he invites viewers to experience sensuality and connection. Sandford’s portraits are revealing and retain a sense of mystery and intimacy. From lounging on unmade beds to the haziness of post-coital moments, his photographs capture the fleeting interval between lovers and between photographer and muse. Through his lens, Sandford invites viewers into the world of his friends, lovers, and associates.
“Sandford embodies the spirit of Bob Mizer,” said De Kwok, Head of Programming at the Foundation. “When we first encountered his work, we immediately noted the joyful exuberance that echoes much of Mizer’s energy. Through his lens, viewers are invited into fleeting moments of connection between friends, lovers, and muses.”
Known for his intimate portraits and evocative storytelling, Sandford’s work has been included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and the Centre de la Photographie Genève, and featured in numerous high-profile publications, including the Sir Elton John Photography Collection. He is currently in development for his first feature film.
Join us for a special event:
An Evening with Stuart Sandford
TBD — 7:00 PM (PST)
Live on Zoom
Stuart Sandford will host an exclusive online presentation about his work, artistic process, and the inspirations behind his powerful photographs. Don’t miss this chance to hear directly from the artist.
For media inquiries or to RSVP for the Zoom event, please contact:
info@bobmizer.org
www.bobmizer.org
For press inquiries, images, or interview requests, please contact:
Corbin Crable
Bob Mizer Foundation
staff@bobmizer.org
bobmizer.org
Exhibition Details:
Title: Stuart Sandford: In Youth Is Pleasure
Dates: September 4 – November 29, 2025
Location: Bob Mizer Foundation, 920 Larkin St., San Francisco, CA
Opening Reception: September 4, 2025 6:00-8:30 PM
About the Bob Mizer Foundation and Research Center:
The Bob Mizer Foundation is dedicated to preserving the legacy of Bob Mizer, one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. The Foundation houses Mizer’s extensive archive of photographs, films, and publications, and promotes the study of physique photography and its impact on modern visual culture. Through exhibitions, publications, and educational programs, the Foundation continues to foster an appreciation for Mizer’s work and its enduring influence on contemporary art.
I’ve created a new limited edition plate based on my sculpture from 2021 with Sean Ford The Prisoner (after Michelangelo). I’ve wanted to produce some plates with my photography and sculpture work for a while now and I’m happy to say I’ve found a great collaborator based in London. The plates are hand made bone china and are available now.
The plate is 8 inch / 20 cm in diameter and you can choose between a Wall Hanging mount or Upright Stand. Edition of 45. Each plate is signed, dated, and numbered on the reverse. Ships in a bespoke canvas bag. The price is $145 (plus shipping) and is subject to increase.
LIFE SEX LOVE - a group exhibition at Galerie Biesenbach in Cologne, Germany is now on view through August 30. The exhibition explores aspects of queer life through multiple mediums including photography, painting, sculpture, and drawing from both local and international artists.
Participating artists:
- Rebecca Bournigault
- Max Gehlofen
- Hà Minh
- Richard Helbin
- Franziska Koch
- Lukas Moll
- Maurizio Onano
- Stuart Sandford
- Wojciech Woś
Lindenstrasse 3450674 Cologne, Germany
+49 (0) 174 4909635
I’m honoured to announce a new book about my work and its place in both art history and queer arts practices, written by the art historian, author and curator Stephen Baycroft. 200 copies of the 1st edition have been printed and the book will be available soon.
A special signed slipcase edition will be available when purchasing an edition of the 12 inch Adlocutio (Sean Ford), 2025 produced to coincide with the release of this book. Available to purchase here.
From the black cover:
“Stuart Sandford’s artworks are explored in this book in relation to the shift of contemporary artistic discussions away from the use of the noun ‘queer’, toward the use of the verb ‘queering’ to explore how heteronormative hab- its, prejudices and traditions may be subverted (and thus overcome) using non-heteronormative thinking and visual artmaking. The queer(ing) use of subversions of heteronormative thinking and visual artmaking to pursue new paradisiacal ways of being, allow the production of non-heteronormative photographic, cinematographic, painterly, sculptural and photograph-based sculptural artworks by Sandford and other queer(ing) artists, to be explored in terms of breaking the ‘mind-forg’d conceptual manacles’ of the thinking of these artists and the spectators of their artworks; the use of rites of passage to have inner (mental) apocalyptic experiences of ‘self’-sacrifice and ‘self’-re- newal; uncanny experiences of cultural hybridisation and haunto(-eco-)logical awareness; the devaluation of a ‘root identity’ in favour of either a ‘personal relation identity’ or an ‘impersonal relational ethic’; and the undercommoner replacement of a heteronormative ‘old commons’ with a non-heteronormative ‘new commons’.
The queer(ing) relationships between lifeless nude sculptures, living nudes and living nude sculptures, are discussed in this book in terms of artistic revalu- ations of the Nietzschean concepts of eternal recurrence and the coming of the Janusian Superman; recurring circular temporal experiences of uncannily interweaving the ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’; the oracular hearing of Dionysiac ‘voices’ and Apolline ‘voices’; ‘shamanic’ magical and ecstatic experiences; and the masculine arts of ‘love-bombing’ and ‘love-bonding’. Queer(ing) experienc- es allow artists and the spectators of their artworks to undergo the ‘self’-sacri- ficial and ‘self’-renewing revaluations of their own perceptual and conceptual norms, needed to adapt to (and thus survive) the challenges posed by the con- tinuously changing flux of beings and events in the universe.”
Hardcover, 362 pages, 1st edition of 200 copies
Desire, Intimacy, Beauty and the Queering Spiral of Temporality
© text: Stuart Sandford, 2025
Queering the Circle into a Spiral: Eternity, Temporality and the Art of Stuart Sandford
© text: Stephen Baycroft, 2025
Published by Stephen Baycroft, 2025 www.BaycroftPublishing.co.uk
ISBN: 978-0-9955276-4-5
Cover design © Stuart Sandford, 2025
Images © Stuart Sandford, 2025
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or trans- mitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including pho- tocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system without per- mission from the publisher.
Book design and typesetting by Stuart Sandford
Cover illustration: Adlocutio (Sean Ford), (detail)
A few images of the installation and opening reception of My Romantic Ideal on view now in NY courtesy of Łukasz Leja.
MY ROMANTIC IDEAL
A Queer Photography exhibition curated by Slava Mogutin
May 1–August 31, 2025
Opening reception: Thursday, May 1, 6-8 PM
Featured artists:
Alejandro Ruiz, Ben Prince, Benjamin Fredrickson, Brian Kenny, Bruce LaBruce, Cameron Lee Phan, Carter Peabody, Donovan Quiroz, Francis Schichtel, Gerardo Vizmanos, Gio Black Peter, Jan Wandrag, Łukasz Leja, Luke Abby, Matt Lambert, Miguel Villalobos, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Quil Lemons, Robert Flynt, Ross Collab, Scott Hug, Slava Mogutin, Stanley Stellar, Stuart Sandford, Tom Bianchi, Tony Solis, Tyler Matthew Oyer, Victor Jeffreys II
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
The LGBTQ+ Community Center
208 W 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY 10011
A few installation shots of Brief Encounters: Queer Instant Photography which runs through February 28th at Carnation Contemporary in Portland, Oregon.
Exhibiting Artists:
Ryan Rudewicz @rude.polaroids Wayne Bund @bundlandia Ian Lewandowski @ilewando Soft Butch @soft_butch Catalina Bulgach @oldassdutchess Nate Francis @natehfrancis Tom Kay @tomofportland Jamieson Edson @j_a_m_i_e_s Chris Moody @horsegurlpress José Tinoco @j0setin0c0 Shadows Gather @shadows.gather Kareem Michael Worrell @kareemworrellphoto C Meier @rispix Christian Rogers @christianmakesthings Michael Espinoza @michaelespinozaart Jackson Fader @bigbrojacks Stuart Sandford @stuartsandford Carlos Enfedaque @enfedead
Brief Encounters is an exploration of the legacy of artists using instant photography to express the queer experience. Queer people have used instant formats to protect the free expression of their intimacies, relationships, sexual liaisons, and communities; some of the risks of showing these images exist to this day. Brief Encounters functions to encourage artists to freely express aspects of queerness, resulting in diverse approaches to the instant format. Audiences will witness deeply personal glimpses into the lives of these artists as well as wild departures from what one may expect from “queer photography.”
Brief Encounters: Queer Instant Photography
Opening Reception: Feb 1, 5-9pm Runs Feb 1-28, 2025
Carnation Contemporary 8317 N Interstate Ave, Portland, OR
Exhibiting Artists: Ryan Rudewicz @rude.polaroids Wayne Bund @bundlandia Ian Lewandowski @ilewando Soft Butch @soft_butch Catalina Bulgach @oldassdutchess Nate Francis @natehfrancis Tom Kay @tomofportland Jamieson Edson @j_a_m_i_e_s Chris Moody @horsegurlpress José Tinoco @j0setin0c0 Shadows Gather @shadows.gather Kareem Michael Worrell @kareemworrellphoto C Meier @rispix Christian Rogers @christianmakesthings Michael Espinoza @michaelespinozaart Jackson Fader @bigbrojacks Stuart Sandford @stuartsandford Carlos Enfedaque @enfedead
Beyond the Closet is now on view at Anggrek Agency in Switzerland and runs through March 22. Curated by Stephen Anggrek, this group exhibition of LGBTQ+ artists whose work explores themes of identity, sexuality and the complexities of self-actualisation in contemporary society.
The exhibition brings together artists from Switzerland and across the globe—Dabi Arnasa, Laura Badertscher, Harald Erath, Renan Estivan, Santiago Figueroa, Yannick Haas, Dieter Hall, Arthur Heck, Richard Kranzin, Matéo Picant Laurent, Marcelot, Antoine Medes, Vladimir Miljević, James Robert Morrison, Daniel C Müller, John T.D. Murphy, Andrea Popović, Jérémy Rebord, Moussa David Saleh, and Stuart Sandford.
I’m showing works from my XX Portfolio of 20 years of photography alongside a selection from my Polaroid Collages (2019-TBA) series and a full list of available works can be found here.
Some documentation of Suppose You Are Not - works from the Ömer Koç collection which is on view through December 29th 2024 at the Arter museum in Istanbul. Thrilled to be showing my Adlocutio (Sean Ford) sculpture alongside so many of my art heroes and iconic works in this major museum show. The scope and scale is really quite breathtaking! If you’re in/around Istanbul before the end of the year then it’s absolutely worth a visit.
A few snaps and installation views from the opening night of SHADOW-BAN as part of the Tom of Finland Foundation Arts & Culture Festival which is on view through November 15th at ShowStudio in London.
As part of the 40th anniversary celebrations for Tom of Finland Foundation and the annual Arts & Culture Festival, Nick Knight and SHOWstudio Gallery announce SHADOW-BAN: an exhibition on illicit content in modern art, including existing and new paintings, sculpture, film, photography and performances by artists including Peter Saville, George Rouy, Ray Caesar, Oh de Laval, Emma Stern, Sonny Hall, Dinos Chapman, Michaela Stark, Miles Greenberg, Pierre Molinier, Nobuyoshi Araki, Simon Foxton, Harley Weir and Von Wolfe, together with a collaboration with the Tom of Finland Foundation.
SHADOW-BAN defies global censorship and the restrictions placed on visual culture today. Social media posts deemed explicit in nature - whether they are politically or sexually charged - are resulting in artists and creatives being shadow-banned by the morals of an algorithm. By definition, shadow-ban means to block (a user) from a social media site or online forum without their knowledge by making their posts and comments no longer visible to other users.
Bringing together a collection of artists united in challenging the suppression of illicit and taboo subjects by mainstream platforms, this exhibition invites the public to reassess how their own morality is shaped by societal pressures. SHADOW-BAN reconsiders
the nature of what makes an artwork 'obscene' and the moral judgments which led us here.
Running alongside the annual Art & Culture Festival, SHADOW- BAN will feature a selection of works from Tom of Finland and 15 of Tom of Finland Foundation’s network of Queer erotic artists. The Foundation’s Artist-in-Residence program ensures support for the next generation of Queer erotic artists while promoting healthier, more tolerant attitudes about sexuality.
Established in 1984, the non-profit Tom of Finland Foundation protects, preserves and promotes the legacy of Tom of Finland and supports LGBTQ+ artists’ creative freedom of expression. Artists include Daffy of London, Daniel Austin Lopez, Enrique Agudo, Franko B., Gray Wielbinski, Mr Gruts, James Davison, JJ Guest, Łukasz Leja, Marc-Aurèle Debut, Olivia Sterling, Orpheus, Pol Anglada, Sal Salandra and Stuart Sandford.
SHADOW-BAN opens at the SHOWstudio Gallery, 22D Ebury St, Belgravia, London SW1W 0LU, from September 19 - November 15, 2024.
Weekend Schedule
Saturday, 21st September
12:00 – 1:30pm
Franko B in conversation with Hetty Mahlic
4:00 – 4:40pm
“Power, pride and shame: Dynamics of disability and care in play” with Dan Daw & Richard Villani
5:30 – 6:15pm
In Conversation with Durk Dehner & Guy Burch
Sunday, 22nd September
12:00 – 1:00pm
Live Performance with Electric Adam
2:00 – 2:30pm
In Conversation with Daniel Lismore
5:00 – 6:30pm
IN CAMERA with Durk Dehner & Hetty Mahlich
For those wanting to know just exactly which prints are in my XX Portfolio, here’s a little video! Presented in an embossed archival clamshell box, these 20 photographs, all taken between 2004 to 2024, are 10 x 8 in / 25.4 x 20.32 cm each and are hand signed, dated, and numbered. Lmited to only 20 editions. The archival box measures 10.2 x 8.2 x 1.1 in / 26 x 21 x 3 cm and is signed and numbered. It can be purchased here: www.stuartsandford.com/purchase/xx-portfolio
I’m over the moon to announce the release of my latest book Stuart Sandford XX Photography 2004-2024 which is a celebration of 20 years of my photography work. This book brings together work from 2004 all the way up to the present day and includes an essay by Rubén Esparza and an interview about my work with Slava Mogutin. The book is available as a Standard Edition and an Artists Edition with a 10 x 8 inch C-tpye photographic print. Both editions are signed and numbered.
Standard Edition of 200 - $75 (plus shipping)
Artists Edition of 20 - $200 (plus shipping)
180 pages, colour, perfect bound, 25.4 x 20.32 cm
It’s been 20 years since I began my photographic journey when I first picked up a camera and thought perhaps this could be my creative life. To celebrate, I’m releasing both a portfolio of 20 selected works and also a book. Images and more details below. The portfolio is now available to purchase here and the book will be available to pre-order soon and will be released September 1st 2024.
How cool is this??? The Tom of Finland Foundation x Diesel 2024 Pride capsule collection featuring a selection of my Polaroids is now available in select stores and online worldwide.
This is the third collaboration between ToFF and Diesel and marks the Foundation’s 40th anniversary. As well as my own work, other artists in the 28 piece collection include TANK, Suzanne Schifflet and The Hun. Available online now on the Diesel website.
Pleasure Gardens with Matt Smith, Guillermo Martin Bermejo, James Mortimer and myself is now open and runs through June 29th. More info from the gallery and a list of available works here.
Last weekend saw the 40th anniversary Berlin iteration of the Tom of Finland Foundation Arts & Culture Festival at the iconic Berghain. Over 100 artists were involved with screenings, talks, and parties. Below are some installation images from in and around the festival.
My London gallery James Freeman Gallery opens the Pleasure Gardens on June 6th. I’ll be showing two works alongside three of the other gallery artists, Guillermo Martin Bermejo, James Mortimer, and Matt Smith, and I hope to see you there at the opening reception.
The Pleasure Gardens of 18th century London were a destination not just for entertainment but for social freedom – in 1732 Vauxhall Gardens saw the earliest verified public appearance of a gay man in London, John Cooper, better known as Princess Seraphina. The gardens’ roots, however, were much grittier: in his diaries of the 1660s Samuel Pepys describes them as a place of “boys doing tumbling tricks” and drunken visitors seeking sexual favours. This exhibition explores the legacy of pleasure gardens from a gay male perspective as spaces of social and sexual liberty, through the work of four contemporary artists: Matt Smith, Guillermo Martin Bermejo, Stuart Sandford, and James Mortimer.
Matt Smith’s artworks reconfigure traditional aesthetic forms from a queer perspective to look at how accepted histories underpin social limitations. The two re-worked textiles here examine the eighteenth century love of pastoralism and its implicit sense of natural order. Geometric patterns embedded into bucolic scenes suggest how seemingly benign cultural narratives involve rigid rules of what is deemed acceptable. His black parian ceramics similarly rework neoclassical sculptural forms but undermine them with suggestive marine shapes, two disembodied spouts joined by a string of pearls oozing a seaside sauciness beneath the veneer of refined elegance.
Guillermo Martin Bermejo’s drawings describe a romantic inner world populated by remembered faces, often creatives or artists, whom Guillermo displaces into the mountains near his home north of Madrid. His scenes thus become become part fact, part fiction, glimpses of an inner realm that he draws onto pages rescued from old books as if bringing forgotten stories back to life. The group of drawings here all orbit around the theme of cruising, with romantic figures glimpsed in light-speckled glades, half-hidden in a forest. The natural space is here a place of enchantment, of anonymity, allure, and discovery.
Stuart Sandford’s sculptures look at the classical tradition of the ideal human form, reinterpreting it through the gay male gaze and contemporary 3D modelling. What was once a philosophical abstract, the ideal concept versus imperfect flesh, is in Stuart’s work articulated as a polished template 3D scanned and cast in bronze. The Wrestler/s here presents a naked man grappling with himself like a feature in a quintessential classical garden, channelling the raw energy and animal urges that natural spaces give rein to. Stuart’s painting ‘Self Portrait with Leo #1’ sees this aggression turn into lust, rendered in Polaroid flash-lit chiaroscuro.
James Mortimer’s paintings describe a natural world whose inhabitants are unrestricted by social convention or self-consciousness. His settings are idyllic, a subconscious world of raw unfettered instincts. In this bucolic land the inhabitants are driven by the twin urges of sex and violence, characteristics they share with the animals on equal terms. Dogs are savage; lambs slaughtered; horses on the point of being so. Amidst this the humans lounge in blissful oblivion, or fight amongst themselves as fires break out in the distance. The pleasure garden here is a dreamlike landscape, symbolic of untrammelled human nature.
‘Pleasure Gardens’ opens on Thursday 6 June, 6:30 – 8:30pm. To register for the PDF preview please email the gallery.
