Queer Art is a definitive compendium of LGBTQ+ artwork, highlighting the expansion and endurance of queer aesthetics within modern and contemporary art. Intergenerational and globally represented, its thoughtfully curated selection of practitioners paints a rich picture of queer visual culture, underscoring the complexity of lived experience, and cutting through basic understandings of the subject that locate “queerness” in overt homoeroticism and proven identity.
Queer art curators Mollie E. Barnes and Gemma Rolls-Bentley begin by exploring how resilience has shaped artistic expression, establishing the historical backdrop against which queer art has evolved. From selfhood to love, history to futurism, thematic chapters unpack the key concerns of queer art as they relate to the work of artists such as Keith Haring, Bhupen Khakhar, Lotte Laserstein, Hélio Oiticica, Catherine Opie, and Xiyadie. By exploring the notion of “queer art” through the lens of both historical figures and contemporary, working artists, the book adopts a dual focus, traversing the past and present to reflect on covert histories while imagining radical futures in which art not only reflects but redefines social norms.
Contributors
Mollie E. Barnes
Author
Mollie E. Barnes is a curator, writer, and residency producer who has worked with contemporary and heritage artists for over ten years. Barnes’s exhibition-making, programming and research lives at the intersection of contemporary art, queer, and feminist histories.
Gemma Rolls-Bentley
Author
Gemma Rolls-Bentley is a writer and curator. She has curated internationally, including at ICA London, the Alice Austen House, New York, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York. She has taught at the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins, London.
