Aaron managed to get his word out to East Side Donnas like David Mason to Michael Musto, in part telling them that:
Brandon Herman, an L.A.-based artist, pulled the plug on a two-person exhibition with Aaron Cobbett at the Envoy/Headquarters space in NYC that was to open on May 8 because he said that Cobbett’s work was ‘TOO GAY.’ … (Mr. Herman alleges he is straight.)
Full disclosure: Brandon is an alcohol buddy of mine. That said, I’ll now counter some of Aaron’s falsehoods one by one. First, Brandon does not allege to be straight. He’s the opposite of straight, and in fact rather slutty. So Aaron can stop calling "hate crime!" please.
Second, there never was a "two person show." Brandon didn’t go to New York to do a show at all; he was there to do a performance piece as part of New York’s gallery week, something made clear by the press materials, which never once mentioned Aaron Cobbett’s name. This makes sense to me considering that they hail from two totally different art worlds — Brandon is from the land of contemporary art, Aaron is from the commercial, product-oriented muscle worship homoville.
More importantly, there was never any contact between Brandon and Aaron. Brandon’s reps were the ones who rented out the space. It was meant to be a solo show all along — Brandon wanted Aaron Cobbett for his space’s square footage, not his art, and he never claimed otherwise. Brandon never spoke with Aaron before or after the incident, and in fact didn’t even know that the space was owned by a photographer. So when Aaron insisted that his glossy gym bunny penis art be shown alongside Brandon’s performance piece, yes, Brandon found another space.
Third, Brandon never called Aaron’s work "too gay." How could anyone possibly think that Aaron’s art (below) is too gay?
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Interesting how the negative comments against Mr. Herman are being deleted…
Indeed. But what’s even more interesting is that all these different people share the same IP address. You can put on a fake mustache but you’re still not allowed to vote twice.
This seems to be damage control from the “conceptual artist” who made a gigantic mistake in not realizing the support for an artist who has been working in the trenches of the art world when Mr. Herman was playing video games by his pool. Your quote “commercial product-oriented muscle worship homoville” seems to be about equal to your buddy Brandon’s epithet of ‘too gay”!!!! But even more condescending considering Mr. Cobbett’s numerous gallery exhibitions, Artforum reviews, etc. He is every inch, if not more, a member of the “land of contemporary art”, and worthy of our respect. Perhaps his work is not premeditated on all the predictable aesthetics that some fairly recent art school graduates think are the only ways to make suitable art for straight collectors to buy, or to be the coolest kid to go into some pretentious biennial, but Mr. Cobbett and his vision is here to stay. Call it what you will. The facts are the facts here: The exhibition was advertised as a two person show, your alcohol buddy had one too many, and found Cobbett’s work too edgy for him to feel mainstream and commercial, he felt upstaged, so he took his marbles and his checkbook to another venue so he could continue to perpetuate his fantasy that he is one of the art boys du jour. It didn’t work.
The original press release that was mailed out for the event is posted at http://roseetride.blogspot.com/
I would like to set the record straight, as this version of events is simply not true.
I agreed to host Brandon at my personal studio as a 2 person show through Envoy Enterprises. The only compensation I was offered was the opportunity to show my work (on my walls). No money ever changed hands.
When Brandon arrived and saw my work, he objected to it, saying he would be willing to stick to the original arrangement only if I switched my images to all women (it was at this time that the infamous ‘too gay’ comment was used)
As this was impossible, I offered him the entire space as a rental, which he refused, at which point the event was moved to a new space, sighting a ‘plumbing problem’
I have emails from both Brandon and the gallery to prove this, in addition this was widely publicized as a 2 person show in advance.