Gender Has Had Its 15 Minutes Of Fame

In the 1990’ies everybody did gender, but now gender as an art theme has had its 15 minutes of fame, and we are back to square one: art made by queer women artists is ignored by the art world. It is a big backslash that the art world isn’t open and curious any more. It has become increasingly difficult for women artists to get shown and discussed at the moment, let alone out queer women artists. Where the curators once tried to accommodate some women in their art shows more and more art shows are now unapologetically male.

The zeitgeist has also changed the artists themselves. Out artists are less inclined to take up themes such as gender and sexuality in their art works and I think that the political/ feminist elements of their works are more subtle. They don’t want to stand out and be ‘the queer artist’ of an art show.

When looking at the art shows, which the LGBTQ organizations around the world organize, I can see more and better shows. And the presentation of art made by out women artists seems to have increased. At least, we aren’t as invisible as artists in our own communities, as we used to be. The LGBTQ organizations, which were born as political organizations seems to have come to the age, where they can embrace art both as a political tool and as an important asset for the community. – We need to know our visual artist, like we know and love our filmmakers and writers.

For the last couple of years some of the LGBTQ art show curators have made shows about utopias in an attempt to make out artists create visions / visual art about an ideal society. There is for example ‘Queertopia’ in Canada, ‘Homotopia’ in GB, ‘Cronotopia’ in USA and ‘Queeristan’ in Holland. If you know more about these visionary shows and artworks, I would love to hear your story.

Looking back at the artists, whom I have been in contact with for the last year, those that stand out most are the fighters, who are making queer art shows in countries, where nobody has opened a queer art show before or documenting a queer/lesbian lifestyle out of an urge to see more create a visual history and a queer iconography for their communities.

Happy International Women’s day to all of you!

Love and kisses,

Birthe Havmoeller