Queer

Description

This conversation explores how queerness has impacted on and informed the art world – from artistic practice to critical discourse – considered from the perspective of the artist. Historically, “queer” was the slur used against those who were perceived to be or made to feel abnormal. Beginning in the 1980s, “queer” was reappropriated and embraced as a badge of honor. While queer draws its politics and affective force from the history of non-normative, gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities, it is not equivalent to these categories, nor is it an identity. Rather, it offers a strategic undercutting of the stability of identity and of the dispensation of power that shadows the assignment of categories and taxonomies. Artists who identify their practices as queer today call forth utopian and dystopian alternatives to the ordinary, adopt outlaw stances, embrace criminality and opacity, and forge unprecedented kinships, relationships, loves, and communities. Rather than a book of queer theory for artists, this is a book of artists' queer tactics and infectious concepts. By definition, there can be no singular “queer art.” Here, in the first Documents of Contemporary Art anthology to be centered on artists' writings, numerous conversations about queer practice are brought together from diverse individual, social and cultural contexts. Together these texts describe and examine the ways in which artists have used the concept of queer as a site of political and institutional critique, as a framework to develop new families and histories, as a spur to action, and as a basis from which to declare inassimilable difference. Artists and writers include Nayland Blake, Gregg Bordowitz, Leigh Bowery, AA Bronson, A. K. Burns, Giuseppe Campuzano, Tee Corinne, Barbara DeGenevieve, Dyke Action Machine!, Elmgreen & Dragset, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Simon Fujiwara, Malik Gaines, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Gran Fury, Sunil Gupta, Hahn Thi Pham, Harmony Hammond, Sharon Hayes, Hudson, Roberto Jacoby, Derek Jarman, Isaac Julien, Mahmoud Khaled, Zoe Leonard, Lesbian Avengers, Catherine Lord, Ma Liuming, LTTR, Allyson Mitchell, Zanele Muholi, Carlos Motta, Ocaña, Hélio Oiticica, Catherine Opie, Ridykeulous (Nicole Eisenman & A.L. Steiner), Marlon Riggs, Emily Roysdon, Prem Sahib, Assoto Saint, Tejal Shah, Amy Sillman, Jack Smith, Wolfgang Tillmans, Toxic Titties, Danh Vo, David Wojnarowicz, Wu Tsang, Yan Xing, Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis, Akram Zaatari, Sergio Zevallos SECTION I: RECOGNIZING BACKWARD Natalie Clifford Barney The Unknown Woman, 1902 Jean Cocteau The White Book, 1927 Richard Bruce Nugent You See, I Am a Homosexual: In Conversation with Thomas H. Wirth, 1983 Jean Genet Our Lady of the Flowers, 1943 Jack Smith Statements, Ravings and Epigrams, n.d. Hélio Oiticica Mario Montez, Tropicamp, 1971 Nithin Manayath Meena Kumari and All that Was Lost with Her, 2013 Charles Ludlam Manifesto: Ridiculous Theatre, Scourge of Human Folly, 1975 Ocaña Spontaneity against Integration: In Conversation with Toni Puig, 1978 Roland Barthes Preface to Renaud Camus, Tricks, 1979 Harmony Hammond Class Notes, 1977 Rotimi Fani-Kayode Traces of Ecstasy, 1988 Derek Jarman At Your Own Risk, 1992 Gregg Bordowitz The AIDS Crisis is Ridiculous, 1993 Isaac Julien Mirror, 2013 Amy Sillman AbEx and Disco Balls: In Defence of Abstract Expressionism, II, 2011 SECTION II: PUBLIC RAGE Hudson Sex Pot, 1986 Sergio Zevallos The Obscene Death / Peru: 1982–1988, 1988 Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis So that Sex under the Bridges Doesn’t Die, 1989 Marlon T. Riggs Black Macho Revisited: Reflections of a Snap! Queen, 1991 Gregg Bordowitz Picture a Coalition, 1987 David Wojnarowicz Close to the Knives, 1989–91 Lesbian Avengers The Lesbian Avenger Handbook, 1993 Assotto Saint No More Metaphors, 1993 Roberto Jacoby I Have AIDS, 1994 Felix Gonzalez-Torres Public and Private: Spheres of Influence, 1993 Gran Fury In Conversation with Douglas Crimp, 2003 Carrie Moyer and Dyke Action Machine! Do You Love the Dyke in Your Face?: Lesbian Street Representation, 1997 Hanh Thi Pham Statement, 1996 Catherine Lord Their Memory is Playing Tricks on Her: Notes toward a Calligraphy of Rage, 2007 Ridykeulous (Nicole Eisenman & A.L. Steiner) The Advantages of Being a Lesbian Artist, 2006 Zach Blas/Queer Technologies Gay Bombs: User’s Manual, 2008 Zanele Muholi Isilumo siyaluma (Period Pains), 2011/2015 SECTION III: QUEER WORLDING, DEFIANT FLOURISHING Zoe Leonard I Want a Dyke for President, 1992 Tee Corinne On Sexual Art, 1993 Leigh Bowery Audience: In Conversation with Richard Torry, 1989 Ma Liuming Fen-Ma Liuming, 1995 Nayland Blake Curating ‘In a Different Light’, 1995 Wolfgang Tillmans In Conversation with Neville Wakefield, 1995 Holly Hughes Breaking the Fourth Wall, 1996 Henrik Olesen Mr Knife and Mrs Fork, 2009 Tejal Shah There is a spider living between us, 2009 Simon Fujiwara Welcome to the Hotel Munber, 2009 Toxic Titties The Mamaist Manifesto, 2005 María Llopis Guide for a DIY Queer Matriarchy, 2013 Gilbert & George In Conversation with Slava Mogutin, 2013 Elmgreen & Dragset Performative Constructions: In Conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, 1998 Kaucyila Brooke In Conversation with Henrik Olesen, 2005 Renate Lorenz Drag – Radical, Transtemporal, Abstract, 2012 AA Bronson Documenta Sex, 2003 Giuseppe Campuzano Is a Bicentennial Possible without Sex?, 2010 Barbara DeGenevieve Ssspread.com: The Hot Bods of Queer Porn, 2005 A.K. Burns and A.L. Steiner Community Action Center: In Conversation with Lauren Cornell, 2011 K8 Hardy amifesto, 2006 Ulrike Müller Bulletin, 2006 Sunil Gupta Columns for Today, Delhi, 2006 Emily Roysdon Queer Love, 2006 Sharon Hayes Revolutionary Love: I Am Your Worst Fear, I Am Your Best Enemy, 2008 Allyson Mitchell Deep Lez, 2009/2015 Alexandro Segade On Queer Reenactment, 2013 Akram Zaatari The Libidinal Archive: In Conversation with Chad Elias, 2013 Mahmoud Khaled The Non-Located Space: In Conversation with Omar Kholeif, 2012 Yan Xing In Conversation with Travis Jeppesen, 2011 Prem Sahib To Make Queer Art Now, 2014 Gordon Hall New Space Education and How It Works, 2014 Carlos Motta We Who Feel Differently: A Manifesto, 2012 SECTION IV: AGAINST HOMONORMATIVITY Susan Stryker Transgender History, Homonormativity and Disciplinarity, 2008 Ron Athey Split Personality, or So Many Men, 1998 Catherine Opie In Conversation with Douglas Crimp, 2008 niv Acosta Thoughts (on Blues), 2013 Wu Tsang In order to fall apart as complex beings, we need first to be able to live, 2011 Karol Radziszewski To push young people in Warsaw to just do it themselves, 2014 Paul B. Preciado Videopenetration, 2005 Malik Gaines A Defence of the Marriage Act: Notes on the Social Performance of Queer Ambivalence, 2013 Danh Vo In Conversation with Adam Carr, 2007 Ryan Conrad and Braden Scott Does This Bother You? Well, It Bothers Us … , 2014 Vaginal Davis Twee & Sympathy: A Manifesto, 2013 fierce pussy Interview, 2009 Richard Fung Beyond Domestication, 2013