Tag Archives: Queer Art

-ismo Is a Queer Arts Magazine for the Resistance

-ismo is a magazine for queer people who resist.

This new, quarterly literary magazine is for people who are tired of being silent. It’s for queer people and genderqueer people and transgender people; it’s for people of color and immigrants; it’s for poor people and stereotyped people and religiously oppressed people; it’s for disabled people and non-neurotypical people; it’s for artists and creatives – if you’ve ever felt different, it’s for you.

Four times a year, they release a multimedia online magazine. The first issue released in April 2017, and is called In the Face of Death and Resistance. It asks,

What is the purpose of an artist? A writer? How is one called to action? What are the many faces of resistance?”

One form of resistance is protesting, which the issue features a photo series on.

There is also poetry, like “41.8781º N, 87.6298º W” –

sometimes i can hear
my mother singing in
the shower and i wonder
if she can hear me when i’m
underwater

The magazine also features opinion pieces, such as Letting Go of Your Former Self, pieces about being genderqueer, and interviews with artists. You can even learn about the queerness of dance with a Parisian-born Colombian dancer:

Why is this magazine so important? It is the embodiment of self-care. Being queer is hard. Every day, we hear about more hate crimes and more anti-LGBT legislation being passed. Every day, we fight hard just to survive.

We’re nearing the 1-year anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting, the deadliest antigay hate crime in the United States. Because of that, arts publications like -ismo are more important than ever.

For more queer art, check out these 4 powerful queer poets and these 17 breathtaking spoken word poems.

Then Plug into these 5 lesbian podcasts, immerse yourself in the works of these feminists or drown your heartache with these 14 queer songs.

And if you’re a creative, submit to -ismo.

15 Reasons To Create Queer Art

Make queer art.

If you’re an artist, create a queer superhero. If you’re a writer, include queer characters. If you’re a filmmaker, don’t shy away from LGBT content. If you like video games, please, for the sake of queer gamers, create.

Of course, you don’t have to make queer art. You have no obligation to, even if you’re the queerest queer artist who ever dared to queer.

But here are 15 amazing reasons why it’s worth it.

  1. LGBTQ youth need to see queer representation now more than ever.
  2. Writers keep killing off LGBT characters. Only you have the power to make it stop.
  3. We’re sick of tragic coming-out stories. For the love of God, introduce writers to the concept of happy endings.
  4. Not all lesbians are hot women secretly looking for a man. Or gym teachers. Let’s start making lesbian stories realistic.
  5. Cisgender white men haven’t realized that gender and sexuality are a spectrum. You can create something truly diverse.
  6. The media industry is frantically looking to queer people for new stories.
  7. You’ll grow a thick skin. Why? Because you’re going to accidentally offend someone at some point, most likely conservatives. You’ll get used to it.
  8. I mean, Disney is doing it.
  9. The world is becoming so openly diverse that if you don’t include queer characters, you’re going to look behind the times.
  10. People finally have the courage to ask – no, demand – to see themselves represented.
  11. You can finally create the characters you dreamed about seeing as a teenager.
  12. You’ll get to roll up to the Lambda Awards in style.
  13. Think of it as slash and femslash come to life. We all know you wrote Sirius Black/Remus Lupin fanfiction when you were fourteen.
  14. You can shine light on the LGBT issues people overlook, like microaggressions or police brutality against trans women.
  15. You can collaborate with other amazing queer artists and form a coalition of queer talent.

What are you waiting for? Pick up a super-gay notebook and start brainstorming!

Dak’Art – A Vechilce for African Visual Arts

Dakar Biennale of Contemporary Art or Dak’Art is scene as one of the most significant vehicles for African and diaspora visual arts. This year, the event attracted curators, collectors and critics from around the globe to engage with artists who represent Africa’s growing clout in the international art world.

The official Dak’Art programme comprised five exhibits featuring both established and emerging artists. The event included Julie Mehretu, Fabrice Monteiro, Abdoulaye Konaté, Mame-Diarra Niang, Soly Cisse and Wangechi Mutu.

The exhibition also included a video by French-Algerian artist Kader Attia in which transgender people in Algeria and India spoke about their lives. ‘Precarious Imaging: Visibility and Media Surrounding African Queerness’ opened at Dakar’s Raw Material Company, however after one day the building was attacked and vandalised. The government shut down the exhibition and ordered the organisers of the biennale not to show any other LGBTI themed material.

Senegal is well-known for its peaceful and moderated Islam. Such an aggressive attack is absolutely unexpected, as is the government’s decision to shut down all the exhibitions in the biennial that deal with homosexuality. It is highly concerning that a country that has always been protected from fundamentalism is now opening the door through an official path.”

Kader Attia

The biennale was originally established in 1989, and took its inspiration from Senegal’s first president Léopold Sédar Senghor who established the World Festival of Black Arts in 1966. The poet politician wanted to celebrate post independence Africa and to promote Negritude, his doctrine seeking to elevate the shared achievements of black people worldwide. The festival assembled voices from 45 countries including Duke Ellington, Wole Soyinka, Nelson Mandela and Josephine Baker. Senegal, a peaceful country steeped in a rich history of arts, music and culture, remains the ideal springboard for promoting Africa’s creative output beyond her borders.

“Senegal has been at the crossroad of various civilisations for centuries, thus our people have an ability to navigate between different contexts.”

Omar Victor Diop,

Jackie Nickerson (featured in www.anothermag.com) captured some of the moments from the event in this series of stunning photos.
US-born, UK-based Nickerson has been photographying Sub Saharan Africa – has preoccupations with agricultural laborours and their relation to the environment.

Dakar has such a positive energy and is teaming with talent. I was particularly struck by the prevalence of street art.”

Jackie Nickerson

I *Heart* Quentin Crisp – The Naked Civil Servant

Many celebrities are personalities, but Quentin Crisp distinguishes himself by having risen to fame on his remarkable life and radiant personality alone. He was born male, though grew to display an unshakeable effeminateness for which he was often ostracized or threatened with violence. He remained defiant in the face of persecution, obtaining a scholarship at a school in which he was bullied, and then moving on to pursue journalism and the arts.

Crisp found acceptance in his gender-fluidity and homosexuality among transsexual and queer prostitutes, although his association would lead to further violence. He resorted to transitioning more overtly to a decidedly female persona, wearing makeup, dresses, and painting his nails. He also began to work as a prostitute, and took it upon himself to make others understand the validity of his gender identity and orientation by simply continuing to live undisguised. He balanced odd jobs as a dance instructor, secretary, and nude model for sketch artists.

He authored several books, one of them a memoir that was adapted for television by Jack Gold (director), Philip Mackie (writer), and Verity Lambert (producer). The success of Crisp’s personal story raised awareness of queer representation, and interest. Crisp took to live performances, giving talks and monologues, then taking questions from audience members.

While he was influenced by the acceptance found in groups and rare individuals who became his close friends, Crisp staunchly advocated his own individualism. His commitment to representation moved him to challenge to the intolerance of the majority of the world, but by no means kept him from challenging the norms of niche and minority subcultures. His wry, deadpan, genteel wit combined with his unapologetically eye-catching persona made him a sought-after voice from which entertainment and news reports would take a quote or sound bite.

Quentin Crisp died at the age of ninety-one, of natural causes.