TOM TEAM - ART FAIR 2016

Daffy London on Durk Dehner

I place my statement here so that people can go see the man. And not judge something completely out of context based on circles etched over artistic activism and recontextualisation.

Queer aesthetics - especially the leather look were presominantly popularised by Tom of Finland - and have always involved reappropriation. In my book, Tom’s art deliberately borrowed from hyper-masculine and militaristic imagery, including uniforms and symbols once tied to oppression, to imagine a liberated, empowered queer identity.

This is not unlike how Black communities recontextualized the N-word: a term once weaponised against them became, in certain contexts, a marker of solidarity or defiance. More generally its used in music and in every day language. I recognise that it's not a word I'm liberated to use, so my many rapper clients of LA would mock me not using it in their company, even though I typed it out daily, whilst making lyric videos. It's not mine to speak. But nazi-ism has affected my community directly. Therefore I'm (we're) qualified to have a say.

During the holocaust, my kind were systematically rounded up, branded with pink triangles, tortured and murdered by the Nazi's. In a sense - to never forget - to own that horrendous time, we must look to appropriate, if only not to piss off the people who still accept - or worse support - with the Nazi ideology.

Queer leather culture flipped authoritarian symbolism into something playful, erotic, and subversive. The goal was never to honour fascism but to reclaim power - to take imagery that once oppressed and repurpose it as part of queer liberation. That’s a difficult legacy to explain to those outside the scene, especially in a time when visual symbols are judged instantly, often without historical context.

At the same time, it’s critical to distinguish between the actual practices of neo-Nazi groups and the symbolic play of queer art and sexual fantasy. Real Nazis and white supremacist factions don’t engage in irony or subversion - they gather to enforce racist, homophobic, and antisemitic ideologies. Their goal is violence and exclusion, not transformation or reimagination.

Durk Dehner, founder of the Tom of Finland Foundation, has operated within this complicated lineage for decades. Wearing controversial symbols within queer spaces is part of that tradition - not necessarily an endorsement of hate, but I see it as a provocative commentary on it. That doesn’t mean the conversation is over, but reducing everything he's done to an Instagram post risks erasing that very history of queer subversion and survival.

By questioning the safety of queer spaces simply because Durk is present, we risk demonizing the very ideology of what it means to recontextualize, to liberate, and to mock systems of power. We risk forgetting that this aesthetic tradition was built precisely to challenge oppression through subversion - not to reenact it.

Black leather, the boots, and the Muir cap are no lesser symbols - referencing the same military scene as emblems. If someone wears black leather as part of their sexual identity, they are directly taking cues from Tom - from his mind, his art, and his erotic legacy. If they compete in leather competitions and immerse themselves in that scene, then they must accept that if they are to brand someone a Nazi because of it, they must acknowledge similar complicity as well.

I've known of Durk since I was 16, and known him directly for 30 years. He might get angry if you put a coffee near an original drawing, or if you don’t recycle correctly at the Tom House - but that’s where his venom ends. He doesn’t attend rallies, he’s never killed anyone, and I assume he doesn’t identify AS a Nazi.

In another post someones also noticed a confederate flag within his outfit. Please understand that I had to self evict myself from Frazier Park, near LA, because people who fly the flag in a NONE ironic way were actually threatening me and my queer black rapper muse. We owned it and called it in his music video. Actually bigoted, actually hateful. I've seen the difference. I left America because of it. The queer scene - such as LA - mostly operates in a bubble, a vacuum, and doesn't witness the world beyond Weho or Silverlake. Nor get that this level of witch-huntery without debate, is the reason people actually flying that flag... get away with doing so. Lets not blur the lines.

Durk was then accused of apologising because 'he got caught'. I'd say it’s more because he understands the hurt this has caused a scene he has helped and lifted and embraced and championed - amidst the toughest fight of all right now, which is trans rights.

We live in a cancel culture world. This guy is in his 70s, and he’s dedicated his life to protecting and solidifying our identity, and embracing art that the rest of the world still considers perverted. I’m disgraced that he’s being put under the spotlight like this - and that he’s had to step away from the very Foundation he built.

By coming at him this way, oversimplifies the topic of fetishisation and appropriation, and comparisons to Elon Musk actually DO create an unsafe space. We must do better. We should be cancelling Prince Harry for wearing a Nazi suit at a costume party, not Durk who so far is the direct reason for my own salvation and liberty, and probably yours too.

Daffy London
#ImWithDurk
#durkforpresident