Luke Gilford: National Anthem: America’s Queer Rodeo

Vanity Fair

Danielle Walsh

One of the great fashion portraitists of the new vanguard, Luke Gilford returns to his roots and looks to the great American rodeos of the West, focusing on the International Gay Rodeo Association. National Anthem: America’s Queer Rodeo is rich with Gilford’s tenderness for his subjects while imploring us to rethink the hegemony of the American cowboy.

AnOther

Miss Rosen

A series of tender portraits celebrating and documenting the [International Gay Rodeo Association] in all its glory. Here, Gilford shares his celebration of the space where queer country folk cultivate a powerful sense of community, creativity, and pride

Guardian

Dale Berning Sawa

A timely musing on the state of America.

It's Nice That

Ayla Angelos

After discovering how homophobic American rodeos can be, the book... is a personal quest to break down these longstanding tribal dichotomies.

Financial Times

Baya Simons

The International Gay Rodeo Association is the little-known organising body for the LGBTQI+ cowboy and cowgirl communities in North America. Based out of rural Colorado, it arranges educational programmes and competitions and teaches athletic skills, care for animals and self-confidence to the community. Photographer Luke Gilford, himself the son of a professional bull rider, spent three years documenting the scene. The resulting book is a glorious, poetic celebration of this singular subculture.

Interview

Joseph Akel

National Anthem is also a rejoinder to it, an unapologetically proud confrontation of a culture that has long clung to rigid archetypes of masculinity, race, and sexuality. Ultimately, as Gilford is himself quick to point out, National Anthem isn’t about undoing the myth of the American cowboy as much as recognizing that such a myth has more than one version to be told.

PRIOR

David Prior

Luke Gilford has become one of my generation’s instantly recognizable photographers for his portraits of the contrarian and marginalized, whose cultural influence is often magnified by his lens. In these richly personal pages, the Colorado-born photographer explores his almost paradoxical love of the American West and queer culture. (Its forebear is another personal fave, the spectacular multi-hyphenate Lisa Eisner’s Rodeo Girls.)

Vogue

Sophia Kercher

[Gilford's] return to the rodeo resulted in four years of traveling throughout Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and California to document rural queer life—and the radical acceptance and community he discovered within the International Gay Rodeo Association. His queer rodeo images have now culminated in [a] stunning first monograph, National Anthem... The book, which is comprised of dozens of images, as well as poignant essays, renders queer resilience, survival, and joy.

BuzzFeed

Kate Bubacz

If you're in an escapist mood, we highly recommend Luke Gilford's new book, National Anthem: America's Queer Rodeo — a delightful exploration of rural America. Gilford grew up going to rodeos with his father. As he grew older, Gilford became more aware of just how anti-LGBTQ mainstream rodeo and rural America could be. Gilford, who is queer, first participated in and then turned his camera on the subculture of the International Gay Rodeo Association over the last four years. This book is as much a celebration of queer culture as it is America, and it's a lovely way to look at the classic American sport.

Musee

Editors

Forever a Rodeo boy, raised by his father in Colorado, Photographer and Filmmaker Luke Gilford attended events sponsored by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Connecting with the International Gay Rodeo Association (IGRA), Gilford is drawn to IGRA’s commitment to creating safe spaces for discussions on race and gender preferences for the LGBTQ+ Community. Seeing the brave and confident attendees at IGRA events Gilford began his three year journey meeting new people and documenting the emerging subculture.