Blog Posts View all

0

By Craig Hale
While the journey of trans representation has come a long way, Disclosure makes it clear that representation can only be a small part of the “broader movement for social change” required to change the conditions of daily life for trans people. 

More

By Denny A.
Acknowledging the audience’s pessimistic comments is not to critique Julie Mehretu’s rigor and work—it is clear she has made and will continue to make her mark in the art world. But how does her resonance to Édouard Glissant’s “right to opacity” uphold when her final piece lies in front of a transparent window?

More

BY ETAMAZE NKIRI

The failure of the gay liberation movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s to pay attention to its gender non-conforming members isn’t just a representation of the transphobia that existed openly at the time. Perhaps most profoundly was its failure in representing the loudest and most outspoken members of the community.

More
More Blog Posts

Here's My Story View all

4

By Mary McGrath

Perhaps my sexual orientation didn’t matter after all. In the end, my mother viewed me as a person.

More
0

By Stephen Smith

But why would I mourn the loss of that boyfriend? I’ve decided that he was not the only one in our relationship who was needy.

More
1

By John Whittier Treat

The beautiful Japanese plate was gone and could not be restored. I put the plastic garbage bag underneath the workbench and it stayed there for years, long after Tom left me and our house as abruptly as I once had left Tadashi.

More
More Here’s My Stories

Book Reviews

The Suits in Garbo’s Closet

A new biography, Ideal Beauty: The Life and Times of Greta GarboI, by feminist historian Lois Banner—who’s the cofounder of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians—presents Greta Louisa Gustafson (1905–1990) as Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde. So much has been written about the actress that the Hollywood dream factory exploited as a marketable commodity during the 1920s and ’30s, when Garbo was billed as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” that it’s a challenge to say something new. Banner’s book offers a feminist rehash of Garbo’s childhood and reprises the well-known struggles on her quest for cinematic fame and financial freedom.

Deep History of the Culture Wars

IN THE SUMMER OF 1997, I gave birth to two beautiful drag babies on Pier 54 in Manhattan. We were at Wigstock, the raucous drag festival. Like many mothers, I neglected their development, but they have since grown into upstanding, fierce queens. Hundreds of drag mamas, whom Elyssa Maxx Goodman lovingly documents in Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City, were far more committed to their drag careers and to nurturing newcomers to the culture of drag than was I.

A Poet of the Dying Years

Saint was a founding member of the Blackheart Collective, and published numerous collections of his own poetry, editing two anthologies, notably The Road Before Us: 100 Black Gay Poets (1991). Sacred Spells is a collection of exemplary poems, essays, stories, plays, and even some performance pieces.

A Power Couple in a Time of War

At fewer than ninety pages, Rowe’s Liberated merely scratches the surface of Cahun’s life and art. But perhaps that’s appropriate as Cahun’s art often dealt with surfaces: poses, masks, assumed or discarded identities. The book pays tribute to Cahun’s Surrealistic photography and æsthetics, her aggressive anti-fascism, and her enduring, indestructible love for Marcel Moore.

Short Reviews

Reviews of About Ed by Robert Glück, The Distance Between Us by A. C. Burch, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World by Sean Hewitt and Luke Edward Hall, The Lookback Window by Kyle Dillon Hertz, Mourning Light by Richard Goodkin, and Queer Networks: Ray Johnson’s Correspondence Art by Miriam Kienle.

Artists as Art Subjects

Miller’s text engages a fair amount of philosophical rumination, but pertinent to the visual examples under review. Her descriptions are usually quite on the mark, and her analyses, however speculative at times, never seem to emerge from left field. Body Language is an absorbing book for those who take photography and queer representation seriously.