York Art Gallery's crude trans appropriation of St Agatha

I wonder if she will be considered the patron saint of detransitioners in time to come?

Crying out to God for relief for her suffering of breast removal. Maybe some Christian detransitioners would find that relatable and consoling.

I was unaware of saints Agatha and Lucy and their horrific torture and suffering. I kind of wish I hadn’t read the thread now. Just awful. Human beings have really done things like this in service of ideology- these women were accused of wrong think or wrong belief.

That aside I am not sure how these stories are meant to inspire anyone to want to become or remain Christian! I think it would put me off and send me looking for some warm and fuzzy religion about love and peace or something like that.

That’s true about art “property” AnuS but he has his facts totally wrong about St Agatha. You can’t change history to fit the art. Indeed, we are on a dangerously slippery slope if we start rewriting it, to fit someone’s “art”. And even that is questionable here. Is it art or is a political positioning being peddled here?

Oh my word. I'm not drunk I promise.

Which is our right

For me, this thing is, art is a universal property. Anyone can think anything about art and anything can be art (in a manner of speaking. This is clearly art and a well know piece. The exhibition is about queering art (whatever that is) and this dude's opinion is as valid as anyone else else's. We can also be offended, but Huch is our right.

The Art Gallery has responded with a series of tweets defending it's exhibition.

This was a good response

twitter.com/LissaKEvans/status/1573423118919806976?s=20&t=EzfX4XOr7gnRcr1opaueJQ

Oooo I got deleted. Bizarre.
Trying to work out my wrong think. Can't have been the bit about York Art Gallery being part of a trust and independent of the Council..... surely?
What about the bit about this coming from within the sector? That OK?
Got to stay relevant with the under 25s by appropriating Christian religion to reframe another set of beliefs ? Is that worded better for you?

If I lived in the York area (unfortunately about as far away as it's possible to get) I'd be tempted to simply remove the plaque or whatever it is. Or of it couldn't be removed, spray it with spray paint. That would get publicity and the debate would reach a far wider audience that polite exchanges from Christians would.

There is value to queering in the sense of querying. Why should certain ways of thinking be established as the way? But querying for the sake of understanding, of growth and improvement, not queering for the sake of destruction.

I think it should always be made clear that members of the public’s views on/responses to the art are just that: personal responses. I’m not sure this does.

A few thoughts have come to me after reading the Twitter thread. Artists in the past have gained enjoyment from illustrating St Agatha's torture. Not good.
And this offensive writing has been aimed, with some subtlety, at two areas where there are problems between trans people and women.
It has been reported that trans people wanting breast surgery think they should come ahead of women who actually need it. St Agatha has been made patron of women with breast cancer.
And she is also the patron of women who have been raped (despite, apparently, having been miraculously protected against it herself). We know how that is treated by the trans lobby.
This is not just queering another saintly woman. This is trying to remove yet more support from women who need it.

I mean, this is saying the quiet bit out loud isn't it?

Yes, girls are now getting the NHS to remove their breasts in homage to the new religion.

They were cut off as a part of her torture for failing to give up Christianity

I don't think it is far from the truth to say that detransitioners are and will be undergoing torture for the rest of their lives. It is spot on.

Art is subjective. The viewer will inevitably bring their experience to what they see. In one sense, that kind of project is quite interesting to get viewers' responses to paintings BUT it about the viewer and the gallery visitor's experience. It should not be presented in a way that suggests we should reinterpret the painting. Where is the critical thinking these days?

We live in such narcissistic times.

See also this thread, for more batshittery

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4631901-york-art-gallery

On flippant note I quite like the idea of 'queering' things. It might have been Graham Linehan who got confused recently about 'queering' a dining table, but it got me thinking.

Whenever I fancy changing things around they are henceforth to be called queered. If I move the furniture around, I have queered the living room. If I'm wearing a summer dress with winter boots, I am queering my outfit. And I shall definitely put the forks where the knives should be & the spoons under the table as a mark of respect to Glinner. And don't you dare argue with me. Else you're all transphobes.

Writing to the gallery might be an idea yes.

As a Christian, as a woman, as a parent of a girl child who has talked to me about breast binding (& many of her peers seem confused about their gender...)
this concerns me greatly.

Thanks for highlighting it here OP & for other posters insightful comments too

Has anyone been in touch with the gallery to say how batshit crazy they've made themselves look?

That’s about the score of it.

It can only be destrictive, because that is its function. It creates nothing, it only kicks away the foundations of what already exists, like some nasty little bully kicking over sandcastles.

Nailed it @escapingthecity. That painting makes me extremely queasy and not just because I can’t stand blancmange.

What is it about the concept of a woman being tortured by involuntarily having her breasts cut off makes these people think “hmmm, yeah, but I don’t really think that torture and sainthood and the religious abuse of women is anything like as interesting as my very twenty first century identity, which we should immediately foreground”.

Now if they had looked at the painting and mused a bit about how the latest iteration of the patriarchy is encouraging women to cut their own breasts off rather than going to all the fuss and bother of doing it for us, then they might pique my interest.

But no.

I like how Labour are blamed in the tweet despite not being in charge of the Council

if the ahistorical, self indulgent nonsensical witterings are what is meant by “being queered”, though, I think we can safely do without it.

Isn't that what 'queering' fundamentally is? Whatever norms, standards, beliefs, ethics exist need to be subverted and completely overturned. What does queering achieve, other than a terrifying combination of anarchy and dictatorship?

It's hideous for sure and if I were a Christian I'd probably find it crazily offensive.
I do think he and York Gallery are free to hold their opinions and also utilise the art in any way they like. Freedom. Art. All that jazz. But I do also think they are scoring a marvellous own-goal which makes them look ridiculous.