GAVLAK presents Flaming June | Body Heat, the fourth iteration in the gallery’s ongoing Flaming June summer exhibition series, which began in 1997 as a tribute to the heat, seduction, and underlying tension of the season. This year, the series continues with a group presentation inspired by the 1981 neo-noir erotic thriller movie Body Heat, which was filmed in south Florida.
The exhibition features works by Tunji Adeniyi- Jones, Lita Albuquerque, Tiffany Alfonseca, Jose Alvarez (D.O.P.A.), Lisa Anne Auerbach, Judie Bamber, Andrew Brischler, Judy Chicago, Jake Clark, Johnny DeFeo, Joel Gaitan, Nir Hod, David Hockney, Sheree Hovsepian, Laddie John Dill, Ella Kruglyanskaya, Marilyn Minter, Wolfgang Tillmans, T.J. Wilcox, Andy Warhol, Rob Wynne and Bunny Yeager. Together, these artists mirror the film’s iconic setting, both environmental and psychological, as a conceptual anchor, bringing together a wide range of contemporary artists whose works explore themes of desire, identity, and the electric pull between surface and depth.
Much like the Lawrence Kasdan film that lends the show its name, Body Heat positions Florida not simply as a backdrop, but as a character in its own right. The state’s mythologized identity, cinematic legacy, and climatic extremes provide fertile ground for a noir sensibility that simmers beneath the surface. Within this narrative, Florida is both a paradise and a pressure cooker. Fantasy curdles into tension. Seduction becomes a survival strategy.
Works on view span painting, photography, sculpture, and text, with highlights including Judy Chicago’s incisive feminist explorations of control and bodily agency; Wolfgang Tillmans and Sheree Hovsepian’s intimate investigations through formal and emotional abstraction; and Rob Wynne’s glimmering text pieces, which refract language through sensual materials and pull the viewer into mirrored landscapes of reflection.
Several works in the exhibition engage directly with themes of voyeurism, close-up compositions mimic the act of peering into the erotic, psychological, and performative dimensions of these images. Judie Bamber’s intimate portrayals of the body, Marilyn Minter’s seductive surfaces, and Andrew Brischler’s bold, cinematic paintings raise questions around identity, sexuality, and the body as both subject and spectacle.
In contrast, other works turn to the rituals of daily life, grounding the exhibition’s heat and desire in the familiar. David Hockney’s still life compositions, Warhol’s candid photographs reflect on the personal and poetic nature of everyday experience, Johnny DeFeo’s detailed interiors fold into idyllic outdoor scenes and Joel Gaitan’s terracotta vessels evoke intimate rituals of care and remembrance, blending ancestral tradition with queer identity to honor the everyday as sacred.