John Trobaugh

Work

Books

• In Potentially Harmful: The Art of American Censorship, Trobaugh's work was shown alongside Dread Scott, Robert Mapplethorpe, Sue Coe, Lynda Benglis, Andres Serrano, Karen Finley, Alma Lopez, John Jota Leaos, Benita Carr, Anita Steckel, Renee Cox, Gayla Lemke, Marilyn Zimmerman, John Sims, The Critical Art Ensemble, Eric Fischl, Tom Forsythe, Nancy Worthington, David Avalos, Scott Kessler, Louis Hock and Elizabeth Sisco. This project was funded by a major grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts with considerable local support from the Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs, and the Georgia State University College of Arts and Sciences Visiting Artists and Scholars Fund, the College of Law, the Ethics Center, Women's Studies, African American Studies, the Department of Communications and additional private donors.

  Quotes

• Photographs by John Trobaugh were removed from display for “inappropriate” content at an exhibition at Shelton State Community College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The photographs portray Ken and G.I. Joe posed in romantic couplings. this decision involved the National Coalition Against Censorship. -Queer Caucus for Art
• The censoring of my work from this faculty exhibition served to illustrate this point because administrators “loved” the images, yet the president of the college removed the whole series. People ask why would I want to show my work in the South anyway? I was raised here, the fantasy world was created here, and the images are made or based in the South. Why shouldn’t the South see what the South created? -John Trobaugh
• His most recent series, called Double Duty, are photographs using the 12" dolls to make social commentary," the text says. "Trobaugh's photographs uncannily portray human likeness and gesture." True. In fact, for a second, we thought someone had found and posted photos we took in the '70s. Just for a second. -Stephen Saban of
• Actually I like Trobaugh's photos more than David Leventhal. Nothing is more subjective than art and nothing is more common in art than homoeroticism. -Stephen Smith, , 2004