PARACHUTE
art contemporaine/contemporary art
No.66 April, May, June 1992
(Excerpts from article)
CONTRE NATURE
Maison de la culture Frontenac, Montreal, November 14 - December 8
Presented in conjunction with the fourth international gay and lesbian film and video festival in Montréal, the exhibition Contre Nature, organized by Diffusions Gaies et Lesbiennes du Québec, focussed upon similar concerns and objectives. Bringing together the work of nineteen lesbian and gay artists from Québec, the exhibition addressed issues of representation and identity within the concext of a discourse of normality that since the eighteenth century has positioned homosexual behaviour as "unnatural" and "obscene": thus, Contre Nature.
The exhibition centered around the Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms which ostensibly prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. This clause has long been held to be, by lesbian and gay communities as well as by government institutions, progressive in its recognition of, and tolerance for, lesbian and gay rights. In practice, however, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation continues to affect our lives, making us the targets of civilian as well as police brutality, subject to housing discrimination and restricted access to employment. On the medical front, the continuing difficulties in receiving and distributing adequate safer sex intormation, of opening care facilities for persons living with aids, and of obtaining coverage for necessary medication reinforces our supposedly "tolerant" society's homophobia. Thus implicit in the exhibition's organization was a reappraisal of the notion of "human rights" as it is articulated around lesbian and gay lives.
Addressing issues of language, identity and representation, Contre Nature opens up a dialogue on issues - within the art community and beyond (i.e. the "general society" cited in the exhibition hand-out) - that are for the most part a closed (or closet) door. The active engagement by these artists with media representations of lesbians and gays, the recuperation of gay icons (Andy Warhol, Dorothy Arzner), and the sexualization of the aesthetic body, can be seen as attempts to address the lack of (positive) queer imagery in both popular media and the art world. The questioning of social, medical and cultural institutions' inscription of meaning on the "homosexual body" provides a central focal point through which the artists investigated the processes of identity construction and the figuration of a "body politic" which consciously refuses the imposition of meaning from without...
...In contrast to the manner in which media representations of lesbians and gays function, Linda Dawn Hammond explores a strategy which allows the subject to actively control her/ his representation. In 3 Part Bodyseries, Hammond photographs her subjects in the setting* and in the clothing of their choice, allowing them to constuct their own image, to image themselves. Hammond splits her subjects into three parts (head, torso and feet), the fragmenting of the body enabling identity to figure differently within one individual. The figuration of the body thus becomes the site for the inscription of identity as an individual political practice within the wider sphere of a notion of queer identity...
...The works of art in this exhibition address the
realities of lesbian and gay lives. In acknowledging the divergent
manifestations of this umbrella identity "lesbian and gay", the
exhibition counters traditional notions of a singular or monolithic
'gay" identity. As evidenced by the diversity of subject matter and
points of view, there is no singular "gay æsthetic" that
transcends the boundaries of gender, race, language or other social
formation. Instead, the specificity of artistic practices and the
engagement with issues of representation and identity reinforces the
possibility for political practice within lesbian and gay communities
and within the traditionally de-politicized world of art.
ANNE WHITELAW
*Note: Correction- the setting was a constant throughout the series.
Parachute P.66