Breaking News: Exhibition selection for the first time! Wait…what?! 

Last month, an art installation of mine was selected at a queer-themed exhibition as a part of their pride month events in June. I was really jubilant and super excited at the news, but it also got me thinking! 

Now, right at the onset, I want to tell all readers that I am no artist. Or at least, I am no artist in the mainstream essence of the term. Which means I have never really learnt to draw or paint, haven’t actually painted anything for most of the 38 years of my life (school biology projects and best friend’s birthday cards excluded!), till the pandemic hit and finally gave me the ‘me time’ to do things that I always wanted to, art included. 

Wait, but I have questions!

So against this backdrop, you can well understand my excitement since this was the very first time artwork of mine was selected at a prestigious exhibition like this! And of course, like all new artists (read unsure and jittery still), I wondered about the reasons behind the panel choosing my installation as a piece of queer art they wanted to display at their gallery – In fact, what made my art  ‘queer art’? 

Was it because of my queer identity as an openly gender non-binary and sexually fluid person that my artwork is ‘queer art’? Or was it because through my installation, I portrayed a complex and nuanced understanding of a concept like ‘home’? Or was it because in the middle of arrays of beautiful framed paintings, my artwork was an ‘odd one out’ consisting of a barren tree branch having a water colour painting of a forest at its heart? Or was it because the bifurcated branch reflected my bisexuality and the solid trunk reflected the two binaries of gender coming together into one solid non-binary core? Was it one of these reasons at all? Or was it all these reasons put together? 

Hang on, maybe we should start with what ‘queer art’ is exactly?

Let’s briefly discuss what we mean by queer art per se. The term ‘queer art’ usually refers to art made by queer-identifying people (LGBTHIKAQ+) or refers to art of homosexual imagery that are based around the issues that evolved out of gender and identity politics of the 1980s West. In the Indian context, queer art popularly refers to our own ancient sculptures, texts, folklore, songs, dance forms and plays celebrating alternate gender-sexual forms and behaviours which reflect Indian cultural pluralism. 

But is this definition enough?

The answer is a big resounding NO. Simply defining queer art as art made by people who are homosexual, bisexual or transgender, is pretty reductive, and though love, sex and desire are the strongest themes within queer art, it is problematic to focus only on this because queer art or ‘queering art’ is this and much more! Let’s take a step back and understand the word ‘queer’, shall we?

The ‘queer’ in queer art – An adjective or a verb? 

The word ‘queer’ is defined in the Oxford Dictionary (2021) as ‘strange’ or ‘unusual’, but apart from being an adjective, the word is also used as a verb. In that capacity it then also includes ‘queering art’ and includes artists and curators who take familiar imagery and ideas and ‘queer’ them as a part of a deeply political act, which might extend beyond gender and sexuality. So queer(ing) art then includes queer-identifying individuals and allies making art to express, celebrate, provoke and protest the normative, as well as non queer-identifying artists breaking binaries and deconstructing hegemonic structures in or through their respective art forms. 

Understanding it as a verb: Examples of non-queer, queer(ing) artists!

Speaking of which, I am reminded of some of my friends – one of whom is an award winning documentary film maker who once told me about the usual top down camera angle approach used on women in documentary films. She said “I know this is a common and traditional way of filming a documentary, but I feel it makes the woman in the film seem small, and I stopped doing that in my films. What is the point of me talking about women through my art form, if I cannot question and change the art form in the first place?” Now, my friend does not identify as queer, and neither is her documentary about any queer issue. But if this is not queering art, then what is?

Another interesting example would be this instagram page I follow where the artist goes around town painting giant clitorises at public places in order to raise awareness about female pleasure and the orgasm gap. The artist in this case, I believe, is a cis-het woman and the clitoris is not even a rainbow pride coloured one. But to me, this is also art that is ‘queering’ the narrative in a very strong way. It is questioning, challenging, resisting, deconstructing and then reconstructing set rigid beliefs. It is ‘queering’ the world we live in, is it not? 

To summarize it all:

So starting from expressing queer desire and celebrating queer bodies, to depicting queer lived realities; from activist art having strong political intent as a war cry for revolution, to redefining an art form bending its own rigid rules; all artists (queer-identifying or not), who seek to blur boundaries, break the binaries, and fracture the rigid hegemonic oppressive structures and institutions of society, both personally and politically through their art, are in my eyes, queer artists. 

It is popularly said that art is the signature of civilizations. Even after centuries, we know and remember civilizations not because of their rich businesspeople or famous professionals, but through their arts. Starting from the ancient cave paintings to the writings on papyrus, from ancient architecture and sculptures to folklore and mythology passed on via poetry, songs, dance and plays, history has shown that art has not just been an expression of reality reflecting how things were, but also a tool to challenge those very realities, resisting those norms, celebrating the ‘other’, and being a language of revolution and social change. Understanding this role of art in challenging the hegemonic oppressive norms in society, and thereby expressing, celebrating and reclaiming the non-normative is the foundation of developing a ‘queer lens’ to view art. To me, it is here that the core essence of queer art lies. 

In the words of Aristotle, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance”. 

As a conclusion I should say…

If you thought you would get to read a very academic write-up on queer art of the ‘80s west or of ancient India with a detailed, expert technical analysis of the artists or the artworks, you are in the wrong place (also too late by now!) 

You see, I started this article by saying ‘I am no artist’ and calling myself unsure or jittery. But by the time I have finished writing this, I realize that my belief also stems from a very rigid understanding of who an artist ideally is or should be. Why must I abide by that? Art is our innate creative life force. It is accessible to all. There is no benchmark to attain, no one to compete with and nothing to prove. If you are someone who has always wanted to make art but is struggling with the ‘Am I good enough?’ situation, maybe we need to put on our ‘queer lens’ to view the words ‘art’ and ‘artist’ and redefine them for ourselves in the first place! 

About the author:

Indrani Banerjee is a queer rights activist who identifies as a gender non-binary and bisexual/sexually fluid individual. She has been in the queer rights movement since the last 10 years and is a member of Sappho for Equality. Professionally she is an IT professional and works as an instructional designer in an MNC. Apart from work and activism, Indrani is a backpacker and a solo traveler, an artist, and a poet, and uses different mediums of art and performance art (poetry) to express and celebrate herself and to provoke and rebel against the rigid patriarchal oppressive structures of society.