At London's Tate Britain: Queer British Art (1861-1967)

[Moondance]

CNN ... Only 50 years ago, in 1967, male homosexuality was decriminalized in the UK.

 

As recently as 1954, journalist Peter Wildeblood received an 18-month prison sentence for "conspiracy to incite certain male persons to commit serious offenses with male persons."

 

Many men developed sophisticated codes to coexist as queer in a world that criminalized their identities. For instance, Polari, a secret British slang used by gay men, allowed them to speak freely without the fear of arrest.

 

This month, the much anticipated "Queer British Art (1861-1967)" exhibition at London's Tate Britain investigates another code: the coded aesthetic language artists developed before decriminalization.

 

Gay artists (as well as artists believed to be gay) often explored homosexuality in academic guises, such as through Greek mythology. Frederick Leighton's "Daedalus and Icarus" (c.1869), for example, hinted at the sexual relations between older mentors and young men in Ancient Greece, with the sexual subtext of an interracial gay couple.

 

These expressions of queer desire became more overt in the later 19th and early 20th centuries. An example in the exhibition is Edmund Dulac's "Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon as Medieval Saints" (1920). The satirical piece shows two men in monastic habits, with one of them holding a peacock feather.

 

It's a coy reference to the Victorian Aesthetic Movement, whose members often used fashionable symbols to express their sexuality in everyday life. Props like peacock feathers and dyed green carnations were worn on jacket lapels, aesthetic signifiers that allowed gay men to identify themselves -- and each other -- without being caught.

 

The exhibition's focus on white male artists is impossible to ignore, with women, trans people and people of color glaringly underrepresented.

 

The exhibition's curator, Clare Barlow, confesses that, "we have been constantly frustrated by the comparative scarcity of material relating to intersectional identities: working-class queer lives, queer people of color, trans and genderqueer identities, even queer women artists."

 

Thankfully, contemporary artists are paving the way for queer women and people of color to ensure that future exhibitions like this have plenty of material to choose from.

 

"Queer British Art (1861-1967)" guides us through the work of queer artists who used the aesthetic as both a secret language and a means of escape. Moving forward, let's hope the exhibition inspires marginalized voices to build their own artistic shields, and challenge those who attempt to suppress them.

 

-- Amrou Al-Kadhi, April 5, 2017

 

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/queer-british-art-1861-1967

 

http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170404163222-queer-art-tate-britain-grant-super-169.jpg

 

"Bathing" (1911) by Duncan Grant. Grant's celebration of the male form was influenced by Michelangelo.

[+ WilliamM]

Thanks, @Moondance The catalog for the exhibit is available if you click on "shop."

 

Excellent post.