Sumed Corruptibility and Sexual Innocence. on the Other Hand, If We Step Back from the Localized Politics of Any One Curator Or
nomic value to certain objects that can remain in the cate- gory of “high art” or “histor- ical.” Especially when an object references the pleasure and politics of the experi- ences of women, people of color, and transgender artists, these are the pieces that are most frequently attacked as “offensive,” “pornographic,” and “obscene.” For this rea- son, Irreverent emphasizes artwork by women, trans artists, and people of color as these artists often experience the most intense backlash against their work, at times, even within the mainstream gay community. Thus, the ex- hibition is not positing cen- sorship as an “us” versus Kent Monkman, Duel After the Masquerade, 2007. Collection of Jennifer Dattels. “them” dynamic wherein we can clearly delineate two bi- sumed corruptibility and sexual innocence. On the other hand, nary camps of sex positive versus sex negative publics or if we step back from the localized politics of any one curator or straight publics or even politically Right publics against the institution, these spaces and people, whether they realize it or GLBT community. Queer theoretical scholarship has finally not, are also operating under larger macroeconomic and histor- caught up to what queer artists and activists have long known: ical contexts that mold and massage bias, prejudice, and stereo- that there exists a politics of homonormativity, as well as het- types into these parameters and questions of “fit,” “genre,” and eronormativity, against which artists interested in queer sexual- “personal taste.” ities must also contend. For instance, let’s consider censorship in the case of the For example, consider the story of trans artist Tobaron Wax- multi-disciplinary artwork of Toronto-based Cree/British/Irish man and the censorship of his work: After seeing Portrait of artist Kent Monkman.
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