lesbian art and artists

Documenting a history of lesbian and queer visual culture.

[lesbianartandartists]

This blog is still and will continue to be suspended due to tumblr’s homophobic and misogynistic policies, but since a lot of you are still here:

Cops don’t belong at pride events. Cops are historically and presently the enemy of LGBTQ people. Cops are historically and presently the enemy of black women, men, and children. Cops are historically and presently the enemy of black trans women. Cops are historically and presently the enemy of black lesbians. Inviting cops to your pride events is inviting violence to your pride events. Allowing cops to be present at your pride events is allowing violence to be present at your pride events. The presence of cops at pride events is a message to people historically and presently targeted by cops that they are not welcome at pride events.

This is not an issue of “a few bad apples.” This is not about needing better training, or more sensitivity seminars, or better outreach to communities. There are no good cops. If good cops existed, they would be the leaders of these protests. If good cops existed it would be easy to root out the bad cops, because those good cops would be telling the world about the abhorrent acts that those bad cops commit. If good cops were meant to exist, there wouldn’t be so many examples of cops who’ve been fired because they named the abuse and violence committed by their coworkers. There is no way to be a “good cop” and to remain a cop. That picture you’re about to link of cops kneeling in “solidarity” with protesters is meaningless propaganda. I know from seeing this locally in my own city and from seeing verified accounts of this in countless other cities across the U.S.: the cops in that picture are about to teargas, beat, and arrest protestors without any provocation. If cops actually wanted to act in solidarity, they would put down their weapons, remove their riot gear, and walk away. If cops actually wanted to act in solidarity, they would stop being cops, in the same way that you or I would stop working for any company or employer who allowed and encouraged violence and racism.

Cops don’t belong at pride events.

I don’t care if your brother, your father, your mother, your best friend, or whoever else is a cop. I don’t care if your girlfriend is a cop. There are no good cops. If this statement makes you angry, if it makes you want to defend your cop friends and cop family, I’d like to encourage you to step outside of your hurt feelings, look around you, and consider what it means that your loved one is willing to be a part of this. If you’re getting geared up to write a comment that includes the words “not all cops,” “all lives matter,” or anything referencing looting, please know that, if it were up to me, you wouldn’t be allowed at pride events either. 

Black lives matter. 

[lesbianartandartists]

These are examples of posts that have been hidden without any notification or option to appeal. If i weren’t cross checking, I would have no indication that these posts are no longer visible to users besides me. I actually have very little idea of how many posts like these are hidden, because the “Hey, this post may contain adult content” placeholder also hides captions. I’ve censored these images beyond what I think makes sense - for instance, how much censoring of the Flavia Rando work transforms an abstracted drawing of a vulva into something not recognizable as a vulva? At what point does the Parminder Sekhon photograph, which is modeled after this Janet Jackson Rolling Stone cover (and there is so much to say about Janet Jackson and accusations of obscenity and the invocation of innocent American children who were unduly harmed by brief exposure to a bare nipple on a television screen) become not-adult? It is worth noting that the pinching gesture, which appears often in contemporary lesbian art (it is seen twice in this set of images), is a reference to this late 16th-century painting, which was held in a French police station and hidden behind a curtain for part of the 19th century. 

This will likely be the last post from LAAA. I’m not interested in, as tumblr puts it, “helping to make these kinds of mistakes happen less often” by constantly appealing (and sometimes re-appealing: many of my posts have been caught in the same net multiple times) decisions about whether or not lesbian visual culture is safe (for work, for children, or otherwise). The blog (such as it is) will stay up for the time being. Thank you for your support over the past five years. If you’ve enjoyed this blog, I hope that you seek out and support lesbian visual culture elsewhere (I’d link to the bibliography I started, but it’s been marked as “adult” and hidden from view). In the meantime: I’m @lesbianart on twitter. If you want to talk about lesbian culture, ideas for projects, or other ways of making LGBTQ histories and cultures more visible and accessible, I’m down. 

[lesbianartandartists]

Seray Ak, Against, 2001

“Shortly after the opening of the 2012 exhibition Aykiri (Contrary) at the Izmir Art Center at Kültürpark in Turkey, officials from the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality removed these three photographs. The artists boldly started a conversation on the politics of public exhibition of works of art in Izmir while vigorous debates about women’s obligation/right to wear head scarves –or not – and the future of the LGBTQ rights movement were underway. The censorship of these photographs occurred one day after a national news agency reported that the works contradicted religious and social values, followed by two national newspapers that published similar stories with one article saying “a photography exhibition that insults religious values has alarmed the country.” In response the Izmir Photography Art Association (IFOD), chaired by Beynan Özdemir, demonstrated its disapproval of the censorship by removing every work from the show thus shutting down the exhibition.”

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[lesbianartandartists]

fierce pussy, I AM A lezzie butch pervert girlfriend bulldagger sister dyke AND PROUD!, 1994/2008

[lesbianartandartists]

Cynthia Consentino, Wolf Girl, 2006

[lesbianartandartists]

Beth Hudson

[lesbianartandartists]

Sue Vincent Marshall

[lesbianartandartists]

Happy/L.A. Hyder, Self Portrait at 40, 1987

I feel all my work is informed by who I am as a lesbian. That no matter what it is, it’s lesbian art… I want to be visible as a lesbian and as an artist, to be able to hold my identity wherever I am and still be included in non-lesbian-identified art exhibits and non-sexual art exhibits. I think most of the art we see that is identified as done by lesbians has a sexual context. I have no problem with art with a sexual content, but that’s almost all that’s shown unless we put our own exhibits together or we go to places that are alternative.  I’ve been thinking about censorship and I have a question. Do we tend sometimes in our lesbian content or in our desire to do lesbian content, to censor ourselves so we don’t get censored? Is lesbian art inherently political art? I don’t think so. Although saying I’m a lesbian gives it a kind of a curve, it’s a political act by an artist. I wonder when a curator who likes my work and wants to put it in an exhibition learns I’m a lesbian, is that going to color their decision? To identify as a lesbian is often to take a risk.

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[lesbianartandartists]

Beth Hudson

[lesbianartandartists]

Beth Hudson

[lesbianartandartists]

Beth Hudson

[lesbianartandartists]

Beth Hudson, Gertrude, Alice and Me, 2002

[lesbianartandartists]

Screen printed two Maori wahine pattern with 'women loving women' inscribed in symbols. Also has two hearts of khaki and red colour and signed HIRA 1991. Bought at the Sydney Lesbian Conference, 1991.

[lesbianartandartists]

Poster produced by the Wellington Lesbian Centre. They were refused permission to put this poster on the Wellington buses. 1984.

[lesbianartandartists]

Printed by Fran Marno. Celebratory towels with HERS and HERS and an image of two women. Fran had recently begun her first relationship with a woman. 1987.

[lesbianartandartists]

But thank god you’re all protected from images like these:

[lesbianartandartists]

"My intention is to have others see what I see," says Jo Ann Block, "fierce lesbians who are still a force to be reckoned with even with physical signs of age."

Jo Ann Block