Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

Del LaGrace Volcano: A Remarkable Mid-Career Retrospective

I did not know that the very first state-accredited LBGT art museum, the Leslie-Lohman Museum, is located in NYC until I heard that it was exhibiting a mid-career retrospective of the unique photographic work of Del LaGrace Volcano. Volcano (now resident in Sweden) is an artist I have known personally since the early 1990s when we were both living in London. In her life and her art, she has been dissecting and refiguring the concept, the performance, and the social understanding of gender. He rejects language that distorts the complex reality of trans and intersex identity and so I will use pronouns in this piece in as fluid a way as suits the artistic work. Volcano hermself uses imaginative, inclusive terms – including s/he and herm.

The photos from the 1990s featured in the show reminded me of how ubiquitous Del’s work was during that time in London. Their familiarity did not, however, dim my fresh view of them in this show. By exploring the real density of the experience of gender variant folks in a world that is organized around a simple binary divide between (so-called) men and women, these photos chart the increasing sophistication and intricacy of the burgeoning movements around and against gender.

Del’s own self-portraits are a map of the progress of the gender-aware community in articulating the multiple permutations of he and she and breasts and chest hair and moustaches and ringlets. Check out “Gender Optional: The Mutating Self Portrait 2000” - at top. The iconic shot of the muscular inverted triangle of one figure’s back leads to the accompanying surprise reverse front image of a woman with breasts. (See “GI Johnny, Jax Back, Jax Revealed” from 1992 on left.) Del is pointing out to the viewer that a simple gaze is never all that simple. The work that was new to me was far more decorative as Del begins in the new millennium to work with color. Here Volcano brings in a whole new playful aspect to enhance the work.

Never dour or pedantic, Del combines wit and surprise with his significant social commentary. Gender is not isolated from race – another intricate social construct. And sexuality – from romance to kink – underpins the counter-gender attitude that has produced this startling, distinctive work. For decades Volcano’s photos have had a very positive – even therapeutic – impact on all those non-conforming bodies and beings looking for themselves in the world of art. In fact, that was her personal motivation. Del told me, “I started making queer images in the late 70s when there was nothing out there that reflected my queer/sex positive reality.”

That this is Del LaGrace Volcano’s first one-person-show in the USA is both a shocking indictment of America’s museums and a point of pride for the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, which has a collection of thousands of queer images and objects going back 300 years. The museum’s events attract hundreds of art lovers and every day up to 40 guests pass through. While they have mounted many edgy shows, Jerry Kajpust, Director of External Affairs told me, this mid-career retrospective of Del LaGrace Volcano has engendered some of the most emotional, jaw-dropping responses. Special kudos to the curators, Jonathan David Katz and Julia Haas, the latter of whom told me that curating this show was a magnificent experience.

If you can get to New York City before November 11, 2012, drop by the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art , 26 Wooster Street, New York, NY 10013, to enrich your understanding of human diversity and to enjoy some damned riveting photography.

www.leslielohman.org
http://www.dellagracevolcano.com/

Supporting My Union Comrades at the Risk of My Health

I have never found a potato chip to match the classic Wise Potato Chip. Its generous saltiness has strongly marked my blood pressure (pleasing the pharmaceutical industry) and its greasiness has clogged my arteries in ways too reliable to question. Today I found out that Wise are made in a union shop (UFCW 1776) in my home state of Pennsylvania. I can claim, retroactively, to decades of unflinching union solidarity.

I spent many years abroad, traveling a great deal, but nowhere did I find a chip that could even vaguely match the crispness or deliver the gratification of a genuine Wise potato chip. When I finish a bag, I wipe it with licked fingers to get every last crumb. I have a special affection for the crumbs which goes back to 1977 when I left the States for 24 years.

In the other countries where I lived, there were only the palest imitations of my true-love chip and so I was reduced to begging favors from my nearests and dearests. From Uncle Dickie in Vermont to Marni the Diva in California – and many friends in between, I asked them to buy me bags of chips and ship them to me – whether I was living in the Middle East or in Europe.

I had a methodology and provided detailed instructions. In order to keep down the bulk, I had them prick the bag with a pin and squeeze out the air. Then they placed a strip of cellotape over the holes in the bag so that it was airtight again. They stuffed as many airless bags as possible in a small box or big envelope and sent them off. My delivery was generally a bag of crumbs, which I would eat by dipping my licked finger into the crumbs.

I have had many moments in life stressing out about what would happen to me if Wise went out of business. Now that I have discovered their proud union, I can transform that worry from narcissistic concern over junk snacks to a show of standing shoulder to shoulder with UFCW 1776. Solidarity forever!

Happy Birthday Occupy Movement

Yesterday was the first birthday of the Occupy movement and despite the rain and cold many of us met up to celebrate Occupy Boston on the steps of the State House. Rita Monestersky- Sebastian (eating cake with me at left), one of the sustaining pillars of the Occupy Boston movement, had concocted a work of art in the person of a sheet cake with a complete mural of the Occupy encampment. People brought food and maintained a picnic feeling despite the rain dripping off their noses.

There were a slew of people who spoke, using Mic Check, mostly men and mostly about economic and environmental issues. I was glad that Palestine came up twice, including an announcement by a woman from Code Pink that AIPAC was holding its conference in Boston soon and people were organizing to tell them to piss off. A number of people talked about the elections, about how limited the choices, how undependable the electoral system, but how necessary it was to vote. They had a variety of reasons – from the balance in the Senate to the make-up of the Supreme Court.

It was grand to be back in the company of Boston’s occupiers, but I was disappointed that no matter how many spoke, no matter how many mentioned the unnecessary wars, including the attack on the working class, no one mentioned the War on Women. Zilch. Nada. Why didn’t I? Well, I’ve been doing that for about 45 years and it gets tired. I want to see others do it – including the men with their long laundry lists of injustices – all righteous – that has a gaping hole where two of the primary targets of the right wing should be: women and queers.

After a couple of hours, two percussionists began a beat, the demonstrators called out chants, and off they marched to Dewey Square. We slipped away at that point and strolled back to the car through a verdant, luscious Boston Gardens, the weeping willows sparkling over the pond. I have been a political activist for 50 years. Fifty years. And I still have to schlep around in the rain fighting the same fights.

Photo credits: Barry Hock