Lezbros for Lesbos Attila Richard Lukacs

International Contemporary Art Summer 2012 Gender Diasporist | Lezbros for Lesbos Men Attila Richard Lukacs | Andrea Zittel Michael Flaherty | Declining Democracy A.K. Burns | Christoph Schlingensief Yinka Shonibare | Shame and Men $7.50 | Display until September 1 Men C114 Summer 2012 2 Summer 2012 Table of Contents Men Editorial Exhibition Reviews 2 Issue 114: Men 44 Michael Flaherty: 51 Attila Richard Lukacs from by Amish Morrell Rangifer Sapiens the Collection of Salah J. by Gloria Hickey Bachir by Sky Goodden 45 Material World by Jane Affleck 52 Althea Thauberger by Rose Bouthillier 46 Seripop: Landscapes Events Reproducted 54 Andrea Zittel: by Amy Gaizauskas Lay of My Land Features by Jacqueline Bell 47 My Winnipeg 4 Shame and Men: A Queer by Jeffrey Swartz 57 Declining Democracy Perspective on Masculinity by Emmy Skensved 48 A.K. Burns: Pregnant by Ken Moffatt Patron Penny Pot 58 A Refusal of Images 10 Everything But the Boy: Chris by Corrine Fitzpatrick by Kirsty Robertson Ironside’s Mr. Long Weekend 50 Christoph Schlingensief: by Kerry Manders Fear at the Core of Things by Natasha Ginwala 24 Ian Wallace’s Monochrome Series by Dan Adler Interviews Book Reviews 18 A Terrible Beauty: Politics, Sex 60 Radical Prototypes: Allan 63 Noteworthy and the Decline of Empires Kaprow and the Invention by Benjamin Bruneau of Happenings, by Judith Ann Marie Peña interviews Yinka Shonibare F. Rodenbeck Review by Milena Tomic 34 Gender Diasporist Shawn Syms interviews Tobaron Waxman 61 Contemporary Art in North America, edited by Michael Wilson Review by Ellyn Walker 62 Martha Wilson Sourcebook: 40 Years of Reconsidering Performance, Feminism, Alternative Spaces, by Independent Curators International Review by Leila Timmins Artist Project front cover centrefold & ibc: Lezbros for Lesbos C School online study guides for Kerry Yinka Shonibare, mbe, Boy on a Globe, 2008 by Logan MacDonald and Jon Davies Mander’s Everything But the Boy: Chris © the artist; courtesy of the artist and stephen friedman Ironside’s Mr. Long Weekend and Ann gallery, london Marie Peña’s A Terrible Beauty: Politics, Sex and the Decline of Empires, plus additional readings and links. Available at www.cmagazine.com. 1 Men Editorial Issue 114: Men by Amish Morrell his issue takes its inspiration from many and Canadian nightclubs in the 1990s and alternately as either Jewish or Muslim. Tdifferent sources: from feminists, gay early 2000s—when women perform vari- Through his performances, which often -in men, lesbians, queers and transgender ous tropes of masculinity in order to reveal corporate elements of Jewish religious ritu- people; from those who don’t identify with its artificiality and theatricality.1 And there als, and through his video and photo-based these categories, such as rural women and is Toronto’s ongoing monthly club night Big work, he explores how the state produces men for whom coming out was never an Primpin, where a queer audience appropri- particular gendered and racialized identities option; and from people in heterosexual ates elements of straight hip-hop identity. and helps rethink ideas of Diaspora. Simi- relationships who find ways of refusing However, the self-conscious embrace of larly, in this issue’s artist project, which authoritative and immutable conceptions highly coded signifiers of gender identity includes a text titled Shit Girls Say, and of gender. Its purpose is not simply to isn’t limited to queer subcultures. The Lezbros for Lesbos, a centrefold pin-up and understand how gender is shaped by cultural clothing chain Banana Republic recently poster, reproduced on the inside of the back traditions, social institutions, economics, launched a line inspired by the television cover, Logan MacDonald and Jon Davies popular culture and product marketing— drama Mad Men that reflects the highly reflect on what it means as queer men to which is no small task—but also to examine gendered fashions of the 60s. Or consider inhabit some of the same texts, spaces and how reconceptualizing gender altogether The Chap, a parodic British men’s magazine ideas as their female peers, and also pay might help us to better understand and re- that espouses impeccable manners, tweed homage to these friends and mentors. late to one another. In fact, those individuals clothing and “interesting facial hair,” pub- Several essays herein critique normative on the frontlines of this reconceptualization lishing articles promoting the lifestyle of conceptions of male identity. In her essay might lead us all in broadening our thinking the British dandy of the 30s and 40s and on the photographs of Chris Ironside, Kerry about experience and self-expression. also staging Situationist-style public inter- Manders examines his photographic series To assemble the essays and artist projects ventions. This broader rethinking of gender Mr. Long Weekend, in which he searches for that follow, we opened up our editorial- helps to explain why mustaches can now be the “real man” of the Canadian outdoors. commissioning process to a wider audience, worn only ironically, and also why we can As an urban gay man, with no interest in issuing a public call for contributions ex- publish an issue entirely dedicated to “men.” camping, this is an especially elusive ideal ploring how maleness is both performed Among the feature articles in this for Ironside. Thus, his comic masquerade, and transformed, and how our contempo- issue, Ken Moffatt looks at the role of in which he performs straight male identity rary understanding of “men” is informed shame in the formation of male identity, by awkwardly posing in weekend camp- by feminism, as well as by ideas of trans exploring the work of a number of artists ground scenarios, reveals the instability of and queer identity. As a result, almost all including Kalup Linzy, Johnson Ngo and notions of masculinity. Nigerian-British of the feature articles and interviews in this R.M. Vaughan. He draws our attention to a artist Yinka Shonibare, another critic of issue reflect a critical and queer approach to refusal of acknowledgement and a prohibi- normative masculinity, discusses with Ann masculinity. Furthermore, the majority are tion that shape both gender and sexuality. Marie Peña the contradictions that underlie grounded in the idea that maleness—as a Moffatt’s ideas parallel an argument made popular representations of colonial his- social rather than as a biological category— by Judith Butler in her essay, “Melancholy tory through the idea of the flawed hero. is a cultural construction that is internalized Gender / Refused Identification,” in which Referencing Shonibare’s works that often at a psychic level and that intersects with she analyzes the psychic formation of consist of installations incorporating cloth- many different facets of who we are, such as gender difference and heterosexual desire ing made of Dutch wax fabric—associated our education, social class, nationality and through the work of Freud. Stated in the with contemporary African identity—they ethnicity. Maleness is a marker of difference briefest of terms, according to Butler’s consider how these hybrid forms challenge that inhabits an especially privileged place theory, children disallowed homosexual a dominant global order, while invoking in relation to almost all other aspects of attachment from an early age will incorpo- masculinity as part of its undoing. identity. And it goes without saying that rate the identity of the same-sex parent, but The difficulty with coolly, or even there’s something wrong with that. it comes at the expense of the ungrieved ironically, appropriating elements of any In recent decades, feminist, queer and loss of same-sex attachment. Stated slightly identity, especially a dominant one, is the trans artists have helped us rethink gender differently, heterosexual desire is based on unquestioned allegiance it often requires. difference, distinguishing it from sexual the repudiation of same-sex desire and, in If we can pass as it, we also gain access to difference and the trappings of biologi- turn, the gender of the lost object of desire the privileges it offers. It is for this reason cal determinism. In semiotic terms, this is preserved as part of one’s own identity.2 that our identification must never be rethinking liberated the heavily coded While the formation of gender is far more complete: it must always hold within it signifiers of gender from the referent of complex than can be explored here, these something that it excludes. Our expressions sexual biology. Ensuing conceptions of ideas never theless still help us to under- of gender—whatever they may be—thus gender and sexuality have opened up new stand the psychic mechanism that lies at the should aspire to pleasure and also to reveal- forms of self expression, helped to recog- origins of gender identity and heterosexu- ing our individual complexity. And while it nize alternative family structures, expanded ality, and present a possible understanding might not always be familiar or comfortable, how we experience intimacy and sexual of the basis of heterosexism. In Butler and the negotiation of variable, contradictory pleasure, enabled the formation of new Moffatt’s arguments, prohibition and shame and expansive identities can enact a more political solidarities, and given rise to new play important roles in shaping male gender ethical and inclusive society. identities. But even as facets of mainstream identity and male desire. society begin embracing these ideas, the In the interview “Gender Diasporist,” Endnotes result hasn’t been simply more androgynous Shawn Syms talks to Tobaron Waxman 1 Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinity (Durham and London: Duke UP, 1998). styles of self-presentation. Instead, we have about his performance-based works that 2 Judith Butler, “Melancholy Gender / Refused Identification” the campy and hyperperformative embrace involve forms of passing in terms of both in Maurice Berger, Brian Wallis, and Simon Watson, eds. Constructing Masculinity (New York and London: Routledge, of signifiers of masculinity in places like gender and ethnicity, through masculin- 1995), 21–36.

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