HOW OSCAR WILDE “ALTARED” OUR LIVES: A PARABLE BY TOM CAPELONGA

In my mind, I keep a map of populated by points of absence: phantom locations long since replaced, which I’ve read about in old gay novels and back issues of . The Everard Baths on 28th Street. on Second Avenue. The Oscar Wilde Bookshop on Christopher Street. I have claimed these sites as part of my identity, where men like me danced and fucked and established context for my experience of today. Gay life in this century has become more diffuse, carried out increasingly in the digital realm while the gayborhoods of the past are deadened by vacant storefronts and corporate-owned businesses. The intersection of 13th Street and 7th Avenue is of particular importance on my map for its proximity to the former site of St. Vincent’s Hospital and the LGBT Center, which, thank goodness, endures. This corner is therefore a fitting location for the Oscar Wilde Temple, the new installation by artists McDermott and McGough, created in collaboration with the Center as well as the Church of the Village, where it’s on view through December 7.

Accessing the Temple requires visitors to descend into the earth, beneath the strata of , to a small chapel tucked behind an unassuming door in the church’s basement. Behind that door, in a space transformed by printed fabric and walls adorned with carved columns, the artists have recreated a Victorian-era shrine to Oscar Wilde, that patron saint of persecuted queers. Ambient lighting and rows of dark wood chairs conjure the prayerful feel of a funeral chapel. The statue of Wilde that serves as the temple’s focal point, unpainted yet unmistakable in its subject, is reminiscent of the saints that line the Medieval Sculpture Hall at The Met. Paintings along the Temple’s walls recount the story of Wilde’s trial and subsequent imprisonment for gross indecency in the style of a Passion play. Most striking among these are panels that depict Wilde’s possessions being sold and his hair being shorn in prison. The atmosphere of the Temple is solemn but not maudlin, softened by kitschy touches throughout. An overturned soapbox. A textile draped artfully across a piano. A spray of yellow flowers. Oscar Wilde. Photo by Napoleon Sarony. 1882

While Wilde is the installation’s primary focus, McDermott and McGough have made space in the Temple for other LGBT martyrs, creating a thread between Wilde and Marsha P. Johnson, Alan Turing, Brandon Teena, and Sakia Gunn, among others. The artists’ 1987 painting Advent Infinite Divine Spirit accompanies a stand of votive candles dedicated to the memory of those who perished in the AIDS epidemic. As I took up a pen to sign what I thought what a guest book, the Temple’s kind docent, Sam Winfrey, informed me that the book was intended for visitors to write the names of friends and loved ones who died of AIDS. I am privileged, I recognize, that I did not have someone to write down. And yet I still felt deep sadness as I read through the names and spent time sitting quietly in the Temple.

Like the buildings where they once congregated, the absence of these people is a part of my identity as a queer person. I partake in a share of grieving them by honoring their memory in the present with an eye towards a more compassionate future. In that way, I experienced the Temple as a call to action. It is not enough to mourn the past from a comfortable distance. The violence inflicted on Wilde and the other martyrs honored at the Temple continues to occur today at home and abroad, dealt out in unjust and disproportionate shares to people of color, trans and gender nonconforming folks, immigrants, and the poor. With so much work still to be done on behalf of the most vulnerable among us, Paul Monette’s admonition comes to mind: “Grief is a sword, or it is nothing.”

I’m thrilled to hear that the artists plan to erect the temple in London following its run in New York. As economic inequality continues to makes cities inhospitable to sites of historic significance for LGBT people, we must cultivate new models for transmitting knowledge about them. That which is moveable cannot be paved over or gutted to make way for million dollar condos. An organization called The Generations Project hosts live events across the country that encourage storytelling and dialogue among diverse and intergenerational LGBT audiences. In the digital realm, the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project aggregates and documents sites of note online, while Instagram entities such as @lgbt_history, @theaidsmemorial, @h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y, and @thechristopherstreetreader raise consciousness daily around historical figures and popular culture of the queer past.

The Temple is yet another model – a collapsible diorama that conjures community through art and aesthetics. I was comforted spending time in McDermott and McGough’s consecrated space. The atmosphere was a salve to my fears and anxieties about our fraught present. I had the added bonus of Sam’s presence and the dialogue that resulted from our sharing the space of the Temple. We talked about his growing up near Dallas, living in San Francisco in the early years of the epidemic, and the community he has found at the Church of the Village. I am so grateful to have met him and commend the church for its willingness to make space for queer memory within its walls. The Temple is open to the public through December 7, 2017 on Tuesday through Saturday from noon to 7pm. Don’t miss it.

November 2017 http://sessumsmagazine.com/2017/11/05/how-oscar-wilde-altared-our-lives-a-parable/