Barbara Hammer and Queer|Art: Granting for the Future

This essay describes how the Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant came into fruition, created by the pioneering lesbian experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer and administered through the New York City nonprofit organization Queer|Art. In 2017, Hammer approached her friend and colleague Ira Sachs to set up a grant in her honor, through the nonprofit he founded in 2009 with the mission to create a diverse and vibrant community through the support of LGBTQ+ art and artists across generations and disciplines. Author and grant manager Vanessa Haroutunian describes the process of working with Hammer to develop the grant, how Hammer's commitment to intergenerational, interdisciplinary conversation cultivated permission for future generations to break boundaries with their artwork, and how her legacy continues to be preserved through the grant's existence. Hammer's mission—to make it easier for self-identified lesbian experimental filmmakers to make work—has been upheld by Queer|Art with the generous support of Florrie Burke and the Hammer estate.

Queer Comics

Queer comics have been a staple of LGBTQIA+ culture, from independent and underground comics beginning in the late 1960s to web comics in the current digital age. Comics are a uniquely queer art form, as comics scholar Hillary Chute has argued, consistently marginalized in the art world. Queer comics have also principally been produced by and for queer audiences, with mainstream recognition not being their primary goal. This marginalization has, in some sense, been a benefit, as these comics have not been captive to the pressures of capitalist aesthetics. This makes queer comics a rich historical archive for understanding queer life and queer communities. Collections of queer comics from the late 1960s and onward have recently been published, making large archives of work widely available. The Queer Zine Archive Project online also houses a large volume of underground and self-published material. There are some affordances inherent to the medium of comics which make it a distinctly powerful medium for queer self-expression and representation. In comics, the passage of time is represented through the space of the page, which makes complex expressions of queer temporality possible. The form is also quite intimate, particularly hand-drawn comics, which retain their original form rather than being translated into type. The reader plays a significant role in the construction of meaning in comics, as what happens between panels in the “gutter” (and is thus not pictured) is as much a part of the story as what is pictured within the panels. In addition to the value of reading queer stories in comic form, incorporating making comics and other creative practices into pedagogy is a powerful way to engage in queer worldmaking.

Resenha de A arte queer do fracasso, de Jack Halberstam

Em 2020 a Companhia Editora de Pernambuco (Cepe editora) nos ofertou a tradução de A arte queer do fracasso, de Jack Halberstam, um marco nos estudos queer, quase dez anos depois do lançamento do original em inglês (The Queer Art of Faillure Duke University Press; Illustrated edição de 12 agosto 2011 – de quando Halberstam ainda assinava como Judith Halberstam). Por conta das conturbações e das crises que atravessamos, infelizmente o livro não fez tanto barulho quanto deveria, já que o autor precisou cancelar sua visita ao Brasil e os debates que aconteceriam em livrarias, como a Blooks do Rio de Janeiro, foram cancelados em decorrência da pandemia do Covid-19. O livro, no entanto, se manifesta como uma leitura necessária e incontornável no campo da teoria queer e feminismos.

The Queen of Hearts: Exploring the process of creating queer art and its use in dietetic research and practice

Body image issues for gay men can shape their overall health and wellbeing. The intent of this article is to explore the personal and creative process in translating research findings to art. The article first presents a brief overview of the research that explored how social and cultural norms constitute the beliefs, values, and practices of gay men concerning their eating, body image, and health. The research findings are translated through an art piece that is disruptive to the dominant ways of knowing about the body ideals set before gay men. An art piece that is, therefore, by definition queer art. The findings, and hence, the art are interpreted through the classic tale of Alice in Wonderland - a poststructural piece of literature. The article describes the considerations and processes used to create the art, including the central character, the colors, and the the symbolism of its various components. Implications of queer art to dietetic practice are discussed.

The Queer Art of Failed IR?

What is missing from the debate about the “end of IR theory” or the rejection of the now infamous “isms”? Queer theory. Those who declare that IR theory is over and those who see it as making a comeback; those who reject the “isms” and those who champion them seem like they are on opposite sides of a very wide spectrum. This article argues, however, that all is not as it seems. Instead, the various “sides” of the debates about the futures of IR all take for granted a common set of understandings of what research is, what research success is, that research success is valuable, and how those things predict the futures of IR. Their only significant disagreement is about how they see the story unfolding. We disagree on the result as well, but the root of our disagreement is in the terms of the debates. We see IR as failing in two ways: failing to find a self-satisfactory grand narrative and failing to achieve its necessarily impossible goals. The current state-of-the-field literature fights the failing of IR theory—even those who see it as over memorialize its successes. We argue that failure is not to be fought but to be celebrated and actively participated in. Analyzing IR’s failures using queer methodology and queer analysis, we argue that recognizing IR’s failure can revive IR as an enterprise.

ringl + pit and the Queer Art of Failure

In 1929, in the midst of the artistic and political ferment that was Weimar Berlin, the young photographers Ellen Auerbach and Grete Stern formalized their personal and creative affinities to create Studio ringl + pit. Their collaboration, which would continue for the next four years, produced groundbreaking portraits, still lifes, and a handful of print advertisements that were celebrated for their inventively formal daring. In line with their training with Bauhaus photography master Walter Peterhans, ringl + pit's pictures were meticulously constructed and technically perfect, but they were also uniquely imprinted with the artists' characteristic blend of the playful, the strange, and, in multiple senses of the word, the queer. In this essay, Auerbach and Stern's adventurous approach to photographic experimentation is explored within the context of their correspondingly adventurous inclination to defy bourgeois conventions in their personal lives. In concert with the aesthetic synchrony that inspired their creative collaboration (such that, for its duration, they disavowed individual authorship in favor of the collective moniker “ringl + pit”) they were also lovers, a fact which, until now, has not been integrated into scholarly engagement with their work. Passionate photographic explorations, their work consistently privileged play, discovery, and intimacy over such conventional markers of success as money or fame. In this light, ringl + pit's audaciously anticipatory collective body of work might be said to adhere to the delineations of what Jack Halberstam has described as a “queer art of failure.”