Queer Art: From Canvas to Club is an expansive anthology bringing together underground artists and legends of the queer canon to present a diverse vision of the queer experience
“No single artwork or a single artist can speak to the whole queer experience,” says curator and writer Gemma Rolls-Bentley. “The queer experience is multifaceted. There are so many versions of what that looks like.” Accordingly, her new book, Queer Art: From Canvas to Club and the Spaces Between, is a brilliant polyphonic cacophany of voices and visions. Alongside emerging and underground artists, Queer Art features work by legends of the queer canon – from Nan Goldin to Catherine Opie, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Derek Jarman, Peter Hujar, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol and David Wojnarowicz.
In her own words, the book “covers a lot of ground”, bringing together a diverse and expansive range of queer art from the late-1960s to the present moment and spanning “different mediums, artwork that you might find in galleries, museums, on Instagram, in a club, in the street, or at a protest”. She explains, “Putting those pieces together and making those connections is part of how you think about what the common ground is with the various marginalised identities that exist within queerness.”
This anthology (published by Frances Lincoln) was borne from Rolls-Bentley’s desire to curate a group of artworks which collectively paint a picture of the queer and trans experience so members of that community might see themselves reflected in art and culture. “It’s a really meaningful and validating experience for anyone to feel represented,” Rolls-Bentley tells us during a recent conversation over Zoom. “But also, I wanted to share it with people outside of the community so that they can get some insight and experience some of the joy that comes from our community. There’s room for anyone who’s engaging with the book to make connections with their own experience, whether they’re queer or not. And that felt really important because, ultimately, it all comes down to human rights.”
As the title suggests, one of the themes explored in the book is the important role queer clubs play in LGBTQIA+ culture at large, and the reciprocal relationship between queer club spaces and queer art practices which, though existing for many as a kind of sequestered creative ecosystem, has also undoubtedly had profound implications on the mainstream.
“Throughout history, for a lot of people, the club was literally the only place where they were able to be their full, authentic selves,” says Rolls-Bentley. “And so it’s a really powerful and heightened place and space. And there’s a lot of creativity and magic that happens on the dance floor. Queer art has existed within clubs because that’s where it’s had to exist, because queer artists have been excluded from from museums and galleries. But that is definitely shifting. And as it’s shifted, we see queer nightlife very much influencing other areas of queer culture and also mainstream culture, whether it’s thinking about how we express our individuality – through clothes, fashion, makeup, hair – or the long history of queer visual coding that plays out through appearance. A lot of that can be found in the club and I would describe a lot of that as queer art.”
Rolls-Bentley points out that many artists – such as Wolfgang Tillmans – have begun by photographing queer club culture. For many others, documenting and celebrating these spaces continues to be a fundamental part of their practice. The curator draws our attention to Rene Matić. “Their work feels timeless in many ways and it totally connects to the club and party. You can feel the line that traces through and, because Rene usually exhibits their work in groups, it sort of recreates a sense of being hugged or loved by your community.”
Artists such as James Bartolacci and duo Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings really memorialise these “hallowed spaces” in their work, artists like Prem Sahib evoke the club through their work in a much more abstract, minimalist fashion. “His work is not explicit, but it is visceral,” says Rolls-Bentley of Sahib’s hyper-realistic recreations of aluminium panels which appear to be dripping with beads of sweat, suggesting the febrile, humid interior of a nightclub. “They take you right back to the club.”
Alongside Isaac Julian (who contributed a foreword and whose 1989 film Looking for Langston she describes as “seminal”), another artist Rolls-Bentley felt had to be included in the book was Catherine Opie. “‘Self Portrait/Cutting’ [1993] is so important and successful in terms of articulating a very specific experience about longing and pain, but also hope.” She could list countless other beloved artists from the book’s pages, but the final artist we discuss is Bahamian artist April Bey. Rolls-Bentley concludes, “Through her work, Bey imagines better futures and better worlds for us, which I think is the power of art. And that’s what the last chapter is,… queertopia; letting artists be the ones to show us what we could be doing better and what that world could look like for everybody, not just for queer people.”
Queer Art: From Canvas to Club and the Spaces Between by Gemma Rolls-Bentley is published by Frances Lincoln and available now from your local independent bookshop.
