The Many Shades of Gay As the previous posts pointed out, many artists who were gay were caught up in attempts from various forces, both political and religious, to censor art. Confused and angered that art would be attacked in a land of free speech, the American art...
The Reception of “Queer Art” Part Two A large blue painting, the color of a dark daylight sky, filled with falling birds, dropping from the heavens, wings paralyzed in death is one of the great images on the AIDS crisis. Using the discredited and...
WHAT IS “HOMOSEXUAL ART?” Part One Once again, the question arises. Like the questions of what is “Black Art?” What is “Chicano Art” What is Women’s Art?’ the query demands a neat definition that is impossible to give. Is...
LESBIANS IN CULTURE In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation. Simone de Beauvoir There is a historical coincidence...
OUT OF THE CLOSET From the end of the nineteenth century on, homosexuals were put firmly “in the closet.” The “Closet” is a metaphor for “silence” about one’s forbidden sexual identity and one’s forbidden sexual longings. Fear of social disapproval and, perhaps even...
WHAT IS “QUEER?” “Queer” was once an insulting term of scorn and distaste applied to homosexuals and the aggressive appropriation of this term by the homosexual community as a defiant positive identification signaled a change from the meaning of the term...
