York Art Gallery

[Cucumbersa1ad]

I need a rant. I've just had a lovely anniversary weekend in York, but my experience of York Art Gallery and their "queered" permanent exhibition space has got me well and truly riled. It's so bloody contrived. I'd love it if they told the stories of gay artists - they have done this a little bit, but the casual bandying around of the word "queer" makes me so uncomfortable as the sister of an older gay man. The term being used offensively is not that far off in the past to people my age and older. This is accompanied by numerous somewhat patronising texts explaining why they use this word and how it's nothing to worry about these days because it's been reclaimed. Hmm, OK then.

What really pissed me off, though, was an exhibition text label next to a painting of St Agatha (who, for those that don't know, was tortured and had her breasts removed) written by a young transman describing how recognised this makes them feel and how it chimes with their own liberating experience of first wearing a binder, even though it really hurt their ribs. I mean, wtaf???!!! How is this OK? On every level - from the analysis of the painting to the celebration of painful ribs - this is so, so offensive to me as a woman.

I noticed they mentioned comments cards but none were to be found. I'm deeply ashamed to say that I'm too scared to contact them online with my views because it will necessarily have to include my contact details, and I work in a tangentially rated field (god I thought it was woke where I work but this is another level).

Well, phew. That was cathartic if nothing else.

I'm not sure I share your feelings about the word 'queer', although I totally get why you feel patronised by the explanations of why they use the word and how it's nothing to worry about. May I ask, out of interest, how your brother feels about the word?

The St Agatha thing would piss me off as much as it did you. A total misunderstanding (wilful or otherwise) of the context her story originated in and, IMO, an act of appropriation. It makes me think of the current discussion about the non-binary Joan of Arc play, which similarly (IMO) seeks to downplay or erase the fact that she was persecuted and exploited specifically because she was a woman.

PS meant to say, could you write an anonymous comments card of your own (on a postcard or similar) and post it in?

He doesn't like it, neither does his dh. I'm aware that it's possibly not my place to be annoyed by it, as I'm not gay. But those are two voices from the LGB community who, it seems, everyone and his dog now claims to speak for.

www.yorkartgallery.org.uk/exhibition/queering-the-burton/

'Queer' isn't just to do with being gay, OP. It's a political ideology and a philosophical ... I'm going to say method, though I'm not expert.

'‘Queering the Burton’ at York Art Gallery supports York Museum Trusts ambition to make the Gallery an inclusive and welcoming space for everyone. Historically, the term Queer has had a number of meanings. Our use of the word Queer is a positive affirmation. Here, we are de-weaponising what was once a slur, and reclaiming Queer as a collective term to represent sexual and gender minorities.'

It isn't going to be 'inclusive and welcoming' for anyone who still hears the word as a slur. Is it up to the York Art Gallery to decide how people feel about this word?

Also, you can feedback by letter. Address here.

www.yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk/contact-us/comments-and-feedback/

The Sunday Times had an interview with Mel C yesterday where she said that although she had only ever had sexual relationships with men, she embraced "queer" as an identity.

No idea what she meant.

I get that. I still don't like it. I suppose in addition to its past use as a slur (and I question whether it really is in the past tbh) I object to the way it's seemingly used to lump together gender identity and sexuality, which to my mind are very different things.

Anyway, I guess that's a separate discussion. The thing that pissed me off most was the St Agatha thing.

Gosh I hate this kind of modern commentary in art galleries. I want to look at the pictures, I don't give a shit how some random modern person feels they they relate.

It's inappropriate whether they use the word queer or not.

It isn't going to be 'inclusive and welcoming' for anyone who still hears the word as a slur. Is it up to the York Art Gallery to decide how people feel about this word?

Well, quite @ArabellaScott (ps my previous reply was in response to your other post, apologies if not clear).

It's always so utterly facile and smug, Mangy. I'm with you.

"This is accompanied by numerous somewhat patronising texts explaining why they use this word and how it's nothing to worry about these days because it's been reclaimed."
But it hasn't actually been reclaimed, has it? That would involve the people who were slurred by it. Only they can reclaim it. Only they can de-fang the word. And those people are the gay men who were sneered at and queer-bashed and were mentally besieged by those who spat this word at them. Some of those gay men may indeed have bravely reclaimed it, but they are a small number compared to the many self-congratulatory arrogant little toads who call themselves queer as a fashion statement.

What it has been, is CLAIMED. Claimed for the very first time, because the people who say they have reclaimed the word have never had it thrown at them as a term of abuse. And that's why the word has no power to them, and why they can use it so casually, and so disrespectfully.

Yes, very good point, WhereYouLeftIt.

It means she’s desperate to be cool, relevant and ever-so-special.

The Sunday Times had an interview with Mel C yesterday where she said that although she had only ever had sexual relationships with men, she embraced "queer" as an identity.

No idea what she meant.

As she's from Lancashire, that's likely to be construed as a wannabe peculiar Yorkshirewoman.

Yes, thank you for phrasing this so much more eloquently than I could have done. It's like "reframe your trauma" but the special version for gay men who were picked on in the 70s and 80s.

Just who the bloody hell do these rainbow-haired under-30s think they are?! Seriously.

This is accompanied by numerous somewhat patronising texts explaining why they use this word and how it's nothing to worry about these days because it's been reclaimed. Hmm, OK then.

Yes, don't you remember the big meeting for all LGB people where this was agreed upon? After tea and cake, there followed a lively silence on adding ten other letters of the alphabet to LGB.

It’s the same as white people deciding to reclaim the N-word.

As she's from Lancashire, that's likely to be construed as a wannabe peculiar Yorkshirewoman

Think you've mixed up the Mels.
Mel C is from Liverpool.

She also has a new autobiography out now, not that I'm sceptical about the sudden claim to be queer or anything....

Superb post, @WhereYouLeftIt

Thank you everyone on this post, especially @WhereYouLeftIt Top notch analysis, and worded much better than I ever could.

When Mel C was born (12/1/74), or at least for most of the time when her mother was pregnant with her, Liverpool was in Lancashire.

See here: The areas to the north of the Mersey, including Liverpool, form part of the historic county of Lancashire, while the borough of Wirral to the south belongs to the historic county of Cheshire. From 1974 to 1986 Merseyside was an administrative unit.

I remember reorganisation in 1974. I was interviewed for my first job, with “the county,” and it messed things up.

It is shocking that that transman’s comment is in the gallery.

It is outrageous nonsense to link his (the transman’s) breast binder with St Agatha’s predicament of having had her breasts cut off. This happened to her under torture because she was a WOMAN who refused the advances of a Roman.

This is not worthy of a gallery.

Having consecrated her virginity to God at a young age, she resisted the advances of a Roman prefect sent by the emperor Decius to govern Sicily. Her profession of faith and rejection of the prefect resulted in her brutal torture, during which her breasts were cut off (a condition often reflected in her iconography)

www.britannica.com › Saint-...
Saint Agatha | Legend & Death - Encyclopedia Britannica

She is the patron saint of diseases of the breast.

I am not sure ScrollingLeaves that galleries care about that.

I saw an interview a while ago with Douglas Murray, where he was talking about his new book. One of the things that interested me enough to put the book on hold was how upset he became talking about the painting, "The Resurrection, Cookham" by Sir Stanley Spencer. This is a picture of the resurrection of the dead as if the viewer was standing in Spencer's parish church, and he included depictions of many of the people he actually knew who were buried there. He also included some people of African descent, but had to base them on magazine photos because no one black actually lived there.

What Murray was incensed about was the explanation that the Tate had on a card to go with the painting that described it as being racist. It doesn't give any kind of adequate explanation of it's claim, it just states it reinforces racist stereotypes.

All this is about is an effort to look relevant, a complete inability to conceptualize the different circumstances of an artist painting in a village in the 1920s, and a lack of higher reasoning processes that would indicate the need for some basis for a claim like that.