Some things I have seen whilst on the road

A few of these pictures were from a really amazing exhibition at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian art in New York, there was an exhibition on called ‘Irreverent: A cerebration of censorship’. This included work by queer artists from all over the world which had been censored, removed from exhibitions, defaced or worse. Information next to each piece explained the context and what happened afterwards.

Sex—queer, dissident, explicit—is a central theme, as this subject is often what triggered a response from the censors and haters. While the defamers of queer life have consistently used depictions of sexual acts as an excuse to exclude works, sexual acts have also been used as a political tool to silence minority voices on a variety of issues that range from immigration and religion, to race, gender, and disability, to globalization and capitalism.

Censorship occurs differently and in multiple ways, locations, and temporal moments. Here we seek to situate the work within its historical context of censorship and to highlight the resilience of the queer artists who audaciously attempt to address diverse social and political issues in their work.

I don’t know why they called it a celebration as the whole thing was about (usually religion-based) homophobia and violence against queer people and art, but still.

I especially loved this piece:

Duel after the Masquerade, by Kent Monkman. Image via leslielohman.org

Monkman’s multi-disciplinary artwork challenges romanticized depictions of European colonization and of First Nations people in Canada through homoerotic and two-spirit interventions.

[…] Duel After the Masquerade interrupts the history of North American colonization and landscape painting through the insertion of his genderqueer alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle.

It references a piece with the same name by Jean-Leon Gerome. Read more here.

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