Are all major institutional exhibitions on queer culture doomed to fail? That’s what it unfortunately seems like, especially in the wake of self-asserted “groundbreaking” exhibitions like Art AIDS America (though not identity-based per se, obviously touched on queer culture and activism) and more recently, the Museum of the City of New York’s Gay Gotham. Curated … Continue reading
In 2016, the figure of the dandy has fallen somewhat out of fashion. It is, of course, a throwback to an earlier decidedly gay–rather than queer–aesthetic. The hypermasculine clone image still goes strong, probably due to its reliance on the safety of masculinity. But the troubling “gender inversion” of the fairy leaves the aesthetic–much like Jack Halberstam’s discussion of Brandon Teena’s gender performance in In A Queer Time And Place–as an anachronism. Continue reading