CripFag from p7 — and some of the instrumentation apparent in his work might not be readily recognizable to the audience: his sip-and-puff straw, his suprapubic catheter, his patient-lift sling. Coombs returned to KCAD a year after his injury. His starting point was a series of black- and-white photographs of himself and two friends titled “Disabilities and Sexuality.” The three subjects — all who experience a differ- ent disability — are shot indoors on a neutral background in the same three poses, lit to emphasize their faces. For each subject, their two headshots are interposed with a full- body frontal that Coombs displays on his website in a three-by-three grid to dramatize each person’s similarities and differences. In his own portrait in this collection, Coombs’ pose reveals his clavicular tattoo that reads, “Giving up is the ultimate tragedy.” Coombs completed his BFA in 2013. But he felt that his new art, which documented his new relationship with his body, didn’t res- onate there. Even before his injury, Coombs says he “never fit in at Grand Rapids,” so he set his sights elsewhere: Yale’s Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) program. There, he finally found people who got him and his work. “Finding my equals was an amazing feel- ing,” he says, “people who understood my work, what I was trying to do, and who wanted to be in my work.” “CripFag” is an ongoing series, and Coombs scales the work in two directions: zooming out in a return to nature amongst the matted green grass and lush conifers rem- iniscent of his youth while also focusing the camera on himself, inviting the viewer into his home, bedroom, and bathroom. Both ap- proaches explore themes of relationship, caregiving, fetish, and sex in their respective scenes. Coombs’ intentional gaze is persistent throughout: sometimes as the focal point of the picture, other times as an off-center re- minder that he hasn’t forgotten the camera — another instrument between him and others. Though he’s figured out how to release the shutter on both his Hasselblad and polaroid cameras with his mouth, with tetraplegia, the logistics of photography are more compli- cated, and he often enlists photo assistants to help operate the camera. “I’m directing people, using them as a sur- rogate body,” Coombs says about his process. “It makes the work so much more complex.” The surrogacy — both people and assistive technologies — that enable Coombs’ work is also its focus. The photographs display people carrying and supporting Coombs and the sip- and-puff mouth controls that allow Coombs to operate his power wheelchair, bed, and desk- top computer. (He does the vast majority of the post-production editing on his photographs.) In photos, the hand-operated patient lift that appears in his images is stripped down to its bare metal frame and modified to glori- ously proclaim his disability and sexuality: with an anal hook. At Yale, Coombs amassed a body of work 8 8 that would be displayed on both coasts of the United States in 2019. He graduated in 2020, amid the pandemic, with an online thesis show. Like so many others, he moved to Miami. Though Miami’s artistic community is A model undresses at a photoshoot. Courtesy of Robert Andy Coombs world-renown, he admits it can be “a little underrated.” But, for Coombs, there is more appeal to Miami than there would be for the average fine art photographer: Miami is a flat, snow-less place, with no state income tax, and home to world-class medical centers — an ideal location for those with a condition like Coombs that place barriers on mobility, income, and health. The eye candy doesn’t hurt either. “The fucking sun feeds my art. The hot guys I get to look at every day who’re half-na- ked feed my art,” he says. “It was a no-brainer for me to move here.” uring Miami Art Week in 2020, Coombs’ photography was displayed at the Center for Subtropical Affairs, a live music venue, garden, and gallery mixed into one property in Miami’s Little River neighborhood. In 2021, Coombs landed his first solo ex- hibit at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Mu- seum at Florida International University titled “Robert Andy Coombs: Notions of Care.” That collection put select works from “CripFag” on display with brilliant inkjet print on metallic paper. The flagship image displays Coombs shirtless in his chair with a crown of leaves and bouquet of juvenile flowers against a rich backdrop of vegetation wielding his signa- ture stare at the camera. On either side of him are similarly shirtless and crowned men staring into the camera, one of them with their arm around Coombs’ shoulder and the other with his hand on top of Coombs’ hand. (The latter is a subtle nod to the common caregiver practice of pressing down on the wrist to combat short- ening of the tendons leading to the hand.) The 17 images in the Frost exhibit show- cased far less nudity and sex than Coombs’ body of work as a whole. Notably, there was only one penis in the entire show. “The show is about care, and sex is part of care. Fortunately, we were able to throw a pe- nis in there,” Coombs says. “The people who control the art world are cis, white men with a shit ton of money. Curators and museums all have to appeal to them or else they risk los- ing their jobs and funding.” This phenomenon isn’t unique to the Frost Art Museum, and Coombs values their part- nership. But as an early-career artist, he has knowingly self-censored his work, not be- cause he wants to, but because he knows it’s more important that it gets seen. “If I was a white, cis, heterosexual man, dating a woman, and we shared pictures of our wedding and date nights, that would be more acceptable. But, because I’m queer, and very gay, and body-positive and sex-positive, then it’s too much, and people can’t handle it,” Coombs says. “People want to have a ro- mantic view of what disability and sexuality is, not what it actually is.” Later in 2021, Coombs’ work was shown at the Photo Vogue Festival in Milan, and in 2022, he was awarded a $50,000 United States Artists Fellowship, which recognizes “the most com- pelling artists working and living in the United States,” in the Fine Art Photography category. Coombs is an adjunct professor at the Uni- versity of Miami, where he now teaches pho- tography to undergraduate students in-person on the Coral Gables campus. “That was the hardest part: having to find new ways to interact with people physically.” Coombs’ work remains inherently autobio- graphical, but he has been exploring beyond his own journey, starting with “Disabilities and Sexuality” and more recently with “Bobby’s Boys,” a series of nude and scantily clothed men in various settings, including condo bal- conies at sunset, sunflower fields, and the col- orful lifeguard towers on Miami Beach. Miami’s disability community is indeed ro- bust, and Coombs intends to take advantage. “I want to incorporate more queers with disabilities in my work, where we’re having in- timate moments and fun as well,” he says. “Dis- abled people can still have sex and should be able to have sex. You just need to be creative.” Musing on his vision, Coombs appeals to Andrew Morrison-Gurza, a man with cerebral palsy who — amongst other feats — instigated a mixed-abilities sex party in Toronto, Canada. “We’re not in competition,” Coombs quips. “Like, bitch, get down to Miami! We’ll crowdfund you.” [email protected] APRIL 7-13, 2022 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com miaminewtimes.com
