Book Review: Queer Art by Gemma Rolls-Bentley

Disclosure: I was given a review copy in exchange for my honest opinion

The 20th century is the most fascinating time for me to study because it’s a century where there was a lot of change and progress in many ways. One of those ways was social justice, particularly civil rights, feminism, and LGBT rights. Like I’ve said multiple times before on this blog, all three of these movements were contemporaneous. Jim Crow wasn’t that long ago. Women having fewer rights wasn’t that long ago. Homosexuality is still illegal in many countries around the world. During my adulthood I’ve seen the rise in support for marriage equality and increasing visibility of LGBT people and in the past few years I’ve seen a rise in far-right homophobia and transphobia. What’s especially heartbreaking is seeing the division among LGBT people where people fight over the most petty things and there’s an Oppression Olympics of sorts. Unproductive as hell. The real enemy are homophobes and transphobes, not bicurious or questioning people or LGBT people who dress flamboyantly and you deem to be not “respectable”.

One thing that has stayed the same throughout history is the arts being a safe haven for LGBT people. People like to think of classic rock as a macho man straight genre when the truth is there’s a large number of gay and bisexual men in the genre as well as lesbian and bisexual women. So when I got the opportunity to review a new Quarto release called Queer Art, I was excited. I try to post Pride and LGBT themed content every Pride Month and even when it’s not Pride Month I’ll often talk about LGBT issues because it’s very important, not just to me, but millions of people around the world.

The title may offend some people who find the term “Queer” to be a slur and this is addressed in the introduction where the author talks about a British artist named Derek Jarman who staged an exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery called Queer. He explained the decision to call it that because it was more in your face and unapologetic than the world gay. Theorist bell hooks once said that being queer isn’t just about who you love, but also about “the self that is at odds with everything around it.” One could argue that most of us are “queer” in some way whether it’s because we have homosexual attraction, don’t conform to gender roles, or don’t conform to normative relationship or intimacy ideals.

Despite there being a lot of LGBT people in the arts throughout history, their identities aren’t talked about much in art history books. When I was a kid sure we talked about Leonardo da Vinci and Frida Kahlo, but we never talked about his being gay or her being bisexual. Many people like to think that gay people of the past just wanted to live their lives and didn’t rub their sexuality in people’s faces, ergo they’re more respectable than us modern queer folks, when really the truth is that many queer artists snuck queerness in their art through coded messages and symbols and the reason they couldn’t be out is because they grew up in eras where there was a lot of institutionalised homophobia.

The book is divided into three acts: Queer Spaces, Queer Bodies, and Queer Power. Within all these sections you’ll see art by and about LGBT people. Queer spaces aren’t just about the gay bars and nightclubs and cruising spots, but also home. Like straight people, gay and bisexual people want to have safe, loving homes. For many, they didn’t feel accepted by their families of origin and they build their own homes and find their new families. Home is also where you have the most privacy and that is especially important. For some queer people, home may look old fashioned or traditional but with a same sex couple instead of a straight couple, but for others it may be more different with polyamory, open relationships. Of course, there are sections within Queer Spaces that talk about the importance of gay clubs and gay clubs being depicted in art. But there’s also a section on the outdoors and escapism. Just like straight people, gay people appreciate the outdoors and love idyllic settings far from the hustle and bustle of the cities. For some, the city means freedom, but for others it means oppression. There’s some paintings of gay couples making out in the park and it makes me think of the Pretty Things song “Defecting Grey”. 

In the second section, Queer Bodies, this is where you’ll start to see some classic rock connections with the intro mentioning Patti Smith’s friend Robert Mapplethorpe who took pictures of the gay scene in New York City in the 70s and 80s. Also in this section is a self-portrait of Andy Warhol in drag from 1982. There’s a lot of non-binary, gender non-conforming, and trans representation in this section as you can expect. A lot of art in this section is more recent, but you’ll also see older art in here too and I love seeing different eras alongside each other. Inside this section you’ll also find art that depicts intimacy and survival. The survival section of the book is a really emotional and moving one to read.

In the Queer Power section, there are discussions of visibility, symbolism, and activism. Not just in the west, but countries all around the world with powerful artwork about institutionalised homophobia, both historic and present. There’s also a section on love, which is incredibly powerful. there’s songs with the title “The Power of Love”, Huey Lewis and the News sang about it and of course, so did Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Appropriately, the book ends with a section called Queertopia with art that showcases a queer futuristic perspective: imagine if the whole world was accepting of us.

This is a very diverse book with representation of trans people, queer people of colour, immigrants, international perspectives outside of the Anglosphere. Like I’ve said about other coffee table books I’ve reviewed being documentaries in a book, this is like an art museum in a book. There is a mix of photography and paintings for the most part with pictures of some art installations that were in museums and some photos of performance art.

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