The main question posed was, is the such a thing as gay art, and if so, what is it? Personally, I'm always flummoxed by this question because I think I'm stuck somewhere between making work that's at once not particularly queer in identity politics, definitely queer in mapping the relationships I have to my subjects, and rather crassly gay at timess in terms of immediate visual impact. Am I making gay art?
I was particularly struck first by the debate between Bruce (Gay art does not exist. ie there is no broad term other than sex that we may-or may not even-have in common, and that act isn't sufficient enough as an identity to be the most critical classifier in art) and AA (Let's talk about a queer/gay sensibility, but we cannot define it. A common experience leads to a unique method of approaching the world and artmaking, but it's not limited to homosexual persons, per se.).
A particularly rowdy audience-member, among many other things I won't repeat, did bring up the good question of Jasper Johns: is his art queer? Never publicly identified as such, if you include his personal history to the reading of his work, does it become so?
Monica Majoli, a queer woman artist, makes drawings and paintings one might mistake for those of a gay man. Collier Schorr's work at times is very visually homosexual, but is she queer? We're so often talking about immediate sexual readings of work, but what about queer artists whose work is abstract or sculptural and lacks bodies and text?
And then Billy made a great point that I tend to agree with: It's all about how and individual or group appropriates art for their own understanding of self. He pointed out that many of his queer icons as a kid were in fact heterosexual, but none-the-less queer. Alice Cooper, for example. It reminded me of how when I was a teenager I would assume and assign queer identities to people and ideas and histories whose objective truths were irrelevant. Today I find Sufjan Stephens as queer as Paul P.
Whether queer art is defined by the self-proclaimed identity of the artist, the assigned and desired identity of the artist by the viewer or scholars, or the content of the work speaks for itself... like AA said, it's there I can feel it but I can't tell you what it is.
What do you think?
On a fun side note: There will be an article in this Sundays Style or Arts&Leisure (not sure here) on the exhibition, and featuring a bunch of the artists in the show. We sat for a group photo before the panel, and I find sitting for press photos always a bit fun and silly. Guy Trebay is the writer, I wonder what he'll have to say...
Oh yes, and in the June issue of OUT magazine there's a profile on me, Scott Hug, and Paul Lee: young gay artists or something like that. I dont think I mentioned it before. We got all dolled up and shot at the Arts Club at Gramercy Park.
ABOUT THE PANELISTS:
- Bruce Benderson is the author of seven books and the winner of the 2004 Prix de Flore, one of France’s highest literary accolades. His work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, French Vogue, BlackBook, and others, and he has translated works by Robbe-Grillet, Sollers, and many others.
- AA Bronson lived and worked as one of the three artists of General Idea for 25 years, from 1969 through 1994. His program Sex Work: the Museum as Brothel; Art House as Porn House will screen at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Germany, on May 6th and his exhibition Sex + Death opens at Galerie Frederic Giroux, Paris, in May . Dr. Bronson is represented by John Connelly Presents, New York.http://www.aabronson.com/)
- Michael Bullock is a writer and the American publisher of BUTT magazine. He is a contributor to BUTT, Fantastic Man, Bald Ego, Index, Me, and Pin-Up. Bullock is also a founding member of the art/culture-based political action committee Downtown for Democracy. (http://www.buttmagazine.com/)
- Billy Miller is an artist, writer, and current editor and publisher of the mythic Straight To Hell magazine. His artwork has been shown extensively and his writing has appeared in such publications as Index, Vice, and BUTT.
- Daniel Reich is the founder of the Daniel Reich Gallery. The Daniel Reich Gallery maintains a mission to set forth to the world pertinent messages from artists speaking in firm yet unorthodox voices.(http://www.danielreichgallery
.com/ )
- Casey Spooner is an actor and performer best known as the frontman of Fischerspooner. He is currently in The Wooster Group's production of Hamlet. (http://www.fischerspooner.com/)
3 comments:
Interesting ideas are presented by this question. I would also have to bring up yaoi manga, both from Japan and the United States. These are gay-themed comics, but the artists who produce them are not usually gay. Does this make it not gay art? If not, then what are these manga?
I'm just a 3rd Year Art student, so I am still trying to figure out exactly what it means to be queer, Latino or whatever other identity I happen to be assigned/take up in the context of being an artist. It seems to me that, much like in the case of "women's art" back in the 60's and 70's, "queer art" as a discourse has a lot to do with a strategic appropriation of an artist or a work for social or political purposes.
It is the context in which a work is being read that opens it up to readings of gender or sexuality. I remember as a child seeing the 16th century painting of Gabrielle d'Estrees pinching some other girl's nipple, and never reading any eroticism into it given the rather dry context in which it was presented (an encyclopedia). I guess what I am trying to say is that the "queerness" of a work of art is only a particular kind of reading, one dimension of a work, and that it such a reading shouldn't close the piece or the artist off to being read in other contexts.
I love your photographs - will you be showing in Norway soon?
Post a Comment