{"id":69393,"date":"2018-08-22T15:05:52","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T15:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=69393"},"modified":"2018-08-22T15:19:05","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T15:19:05","slug":"drag-self-portraits-body-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/drag-self-portraits-body-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"10 radical self-portraits serving ultimate drag realness"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,4568,81,10172,139],"tags":[10953,1849,2101,3023,3778,10952],"class_list":["post-69393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-culture","category-fashion","category-film","category-art","tag-class","tag-drag","tag-gender","tag-hayward-gallery","tag-race","tag-self-portraits-and-body-politics"],"acf":{"main_category":139,"legacy":false,"hero_title":"Drag: Self-Portraits and Body Politics","subtitle":"The curator of a new major drag exhibition in London selects ten of its most seminal works","hero":{"video":false,"image":false,"header_color":"black","overlay_color":"","overlay_text_color":"black"},"teasers":{"video":false,"image":false,"width":"6","proportion":"natural"},"facebook_image":false,"related_articles":[69368,63870,62124],"next_article":[69368],"content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"10","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

Drag, by definition, is ephemeral, transitional and transformative. It\u2019s the act of temporarily inhabiting a character to break through the gender binary, challenge the status quo, and perhaps even live out a political truth. In 2018, drag seems to be going through a kind of global renaissance \u2014 not only in the mainstream, with shows like <\/span>RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Dragula<\/span><\/i>, but in bars, galleries, cabarets and venues around the world. The misconception of drag as a Las Vegas stereotype has all but dissipated, and vibrant performers of all ages, genders and backgrounds are creating a new artistic community.<\/span><\/p>\n

But how would you represent this community? How could you do all these artists \u2014 who are cultural warriors in their own right \u2014 justice within a traditional art institution? These are the questions that <\/span>Drag: Self-Portraits and Body Politics<\/span><\/i>, opening at London’s Hayward Gallery today, tries to answer, with works from over 30 artists exploring drag through their respective lenses. When we spoke with <\/span>Drag<\/span><\/i>\u2019s curator, Vincent <\/span>Honor\u00e9, a week before the show’s unveiling, his vision for the exhibition was clear. \u201c<\/span>The concept of the exhibition is to address drag and how drag has been used as an art form, via the work of visual artists from the ’60s onwards,\u201d he explained<\/span>.<\/span> \u201cWe are including emerging artists as well as historical ones, and looking at how all these artists use drag to address cultural shifts, from many different angles \u2014 from feminism to post-colonialism to civil and gay rights.\u201d Taking inspiration from their own bodies, alter-egos, identities and environments, the artists showcased in the display range from heavy-hitters like Leigh Bowery, Robert Mapplethorpe and David Wojnarowicz, to newer, but just as important, drag practitioners like Victoria Sin and Samuel Fosso. <\/span><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"4","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

\u201cWhile researching the exhibition I spoke to a lot of drag performers, sociologists, and people from different backgrounds,\u201d says <\/span>Honor\u00e9, speaking to the wide range to experiences represented in the show.<\/span> \u201cI realised that it was absolutely crucial to offer a diversity of expressions. Actually, I believe about 50% of the artists\u00a0we have are drag kings, with a lot of feminist artists included, for example Eleanor Antin or VALIE EXPORT. I think it was very important to speak from different cultural perspectives, so looking at Asia, African and South America. South America had so much political drag art in the ’70s, especially in Chile, where it was forbidden to have any personal expressions other than the binary one. Doing drag, or being a crossdresser, was illegal. So there’s this fantastic artist in the exhibition called Francesco Copello who is dancing in drag with a Chilean flag. That was extraordinary for people at the time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To preserve an authentic outlook on drag culture, the exhibition purposefully shines a light on more underground and subversive drag scenes. \u201cWe are only addressing self-portraiture, therefore I excluded everything that has to do with documentation,\u201d states <\/span>Honor\u00e9.<\/span> \u201cI really wanted to present something that has to do with self-performativity and the own voice of the artist. We are not showing mainstream culture, apart from a video by Leigh Bowery of a performance from 1988, and a painting by David Hoyle \u2014 he usually does these when he does drag cabaret, and they’re rarely exhibited. In terms of the breadth of all the different kinds of drag, we are including drag queens, drag kings, and biodrags, and we are including very different narratives of drag. Drag originated and is mainly rooted in mainstream culture. It’s really coming from that culture, and that’s why it’s so critical because it embraces it \u2014 it embraces cabaret, music, fashion, balls, everything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In Honor\u00e9’s own words, here are 10 unmissable artist highlights from\u00a0<\/span>Drag: Self-Portraits and Body Politics\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u2014 but make sure to explore every corner of the exhibition for a full picture of drag’s influence in self-portraiture, and the ways in which the art form is inextricably linked to body politics.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Elaine Sturtevant<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"instagram","code":"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BbR4GoNBe5b","settings":{"width":"10"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

“One of the most important works we have in the exhibition and that I’m absolutely delighted to be able to include is a work by Sturtevant, the American artist. In her career she always sort of appropriated the style of male artists \u2014 such as Frank Stella, Andy Warhol and so on. Her work was an act of drag on these various artists. In the exhibition, we have a picture which is her as Marcel Duchamp in a photograph taken by Man Ray, so it’s a double act of appropriation of someone as Duchamp also did drag in a certain moment of his life. I think this work is quite fundamental to the exhibition.”<\/span><\/p>\n

2. VALIE EXPORT<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"instagram","code":"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/Bmv5kg2j2Do","settings":{"width":"10"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

“I would also choose the work by VALIE EXPORT from ’68, which is a triptych in which she has a dual, very ambiguous identity between a male and a female and is questioning the codification of gender at the time. VALIE EXPORT is such an extraordinary artist and a very important feminist voice.”<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Luciano Castelli<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

“We have an absolutely exquisite work by Luciano Castelli, who made a series of self-portraits in drag\u00a0in the ’70s in Switzerland. They’re a real celebration of these short moments of sexual liberation in the gay community during the AIDS crisis.”<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Ulay<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

“There’s a fantastic series of Polaroid self-portraits by Ulay, where he’s getting into drag \u2014 so you see the change, the makeup happening. The series is from before he met Marina Abramovi\u0107 in ’76, and they’ve rarely been included in his shows.”<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Robert Mapplethorpe<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"instagram","code":"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BmMT5JTgUrZ\/?tagged=robertmapplethorpe","settings":{"width":"10"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

“I would like to mention the two self-portraits by Robert Mapplethorpe, from 1980. He always used himself in his portraits \u2014 with props and creating various sorts of characters. To my knowledge, there are only three pictures of him in drag, and we have two of them.”<\/span><\/p>\n

6. David Wojnarowicz<\/strong><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

“I think the movie\u00a0Beautiful People<\/em> by David Wojnarowicz from ’87 is very important. It starts in black and white, and there’s a character dressing up and shaving. You have the feeling that this person is going to work, and then suddenly the film turns to colour and you realise that they’re dressing in drag \u2014 in a beautiful red dress, walking towards a lake and disappearing. It’s such a dramatic, moving metaphor for all these bodies who were disappearing in New York, with no one taking care of them. This film is radical. “<\/span><\/p>\n

7. Leigh Bowery<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

“We have a performance by Leigh Bowery, from ’88 where he was in a gallery for a week, like a living sculpture, and he was surrounded by a two-way mirror, so he could see himself but he couldn’t see the audience. There’s something about drag as a kind of performance of the self with is very important in this work.”<\/span><\/p>\n

8. Hunter Reynolds<\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

“There’s an absolutely fabulous work by Hunter Reynolds as Patina Du Prey, because it’s important to understand that being in drag is to create an alter ego for a certain time. In this picture he is doing the gesture of silence, which is a reference to ‘Silence = Death’, the Act UP slogan of the ’80s.”<\/p>\n

9. Samuel Fosso<\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

“The Samuel Fosso work from 2008 where he is dressed up as Angela Davis, the civil rights activist, is a fundamental work of, in a way, postcolonial drag.”<\/p>\n

10. Victoria Sin<\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

“The last work I would mention is the video and work on paper by Victoria Sin. Victoria is an artist of Asian origin working as a biodrag in the drag community and visual arts. She uses drag as a way to question postcolonial theory as well as possibly some political issues within the queer community, which is of extraordinary importance.”<\/p>\n

DRAG: Self-portraits and Body Politics<\/a> is at the Hayward Gallery, London until October 14th, 2018.<\/em><\/p>\n"}]},"yoast_head":"\n10 radical self-portraits serving ultimate drag realness 10 radical self-portraits serving ultimate drag realness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/drag-self-portraits-body-politics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"10 radical self-portraits serving ultimate drag realness 10 radical self-portraits serving ultimate drag realness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/drag-self-portraits-body-politics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sleek Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sleekmag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-08-22T15:05:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-08-22T15:19:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Verfasst von\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"sleek\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/\",\"name\":\"Sleek Magazine\",\"description\":\"Sleek is Germany\u2019s leading independent media house\/brand for creativity and innovation located in Berlin the creative capital of the world. 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