Swallow My Pride Art Projects and why gay mainstream culture ain't nothing to be proud of.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Who would pay R250 to listen to achingly dull handbag house and trite 5FM pop stars? Only a rich idiot… and hundreds of otherwise intelligent queer Capetonians.
Why? What has happened to gay culture in this town that we are so starved for choice? How did a vibrant, varied, huge, creative subculture get boxed into events that are nothing more than banal corporate fundraisers?
These are thoughts that crossed my mind when I was asked to organise an art exhibition for Gay Pride. For me Gay Pride has become so debased that the only art I would associate with it would be excruciating Romanesque male nudes in brown oil paint with off putting fascist undertones.
My first reaction was to have a show called Gay Shame, that asked what on earth has gone wrong with us. But the irony might have misfired in a homophobic society where gay shame is still so horribly real: the President is in cahoots with Ray MacCauley of the Rhema church, who plans to change South Africa’s progressive Constitution, starting with same-sex marriage. Zuma also failed to respond to a call by GALA to condemn imminent legislation in Uganda which would result in nothing less than an anti-gay holocaust in that country. It seems like Cape Town Gay Pride, if it were to respond to this, should be more politically poignant today than ever.
I introduced the idea of having a thought-provoking art exhibition to a few of my artist friends through facebook and the response was very positive.
I am working with an amazing group of organizers, namely William Martin, Lizza Littlewort and Dale Washkansky, on the project. After a few late night meetings and the decision to work independently from Pride, the idea of having a Queer Art Group Show has evolved into a series of process-driven art events and unconventional exhibitions. The central theme informing the project is a self-reflective critique of the construction of main stream gay culture in South Africa.
Our first exhibition concept is "Swallow My Pride", a shopping Installation, converging ideas like "Is this the Lifestyle Center, is it a performance, is it a sell-out?" "Swallow My Pride" is supposed to be a confrontational and visceral response to conservative, consumerist gay mainstream culture. We swallow when we consume, whether it be one too many drinks at the club or whether we are not able be open about our sexuality to strangers or our families. We (trannies, fags, dykes, bisexuals, queers and even straights) have to swallow all that consumerist mainstream hetero-normative shit that goes with mainstream gay culture and mainstream culture as a whole.
The shopping installation is meant to invert and subvert events like Gay Pride, presenting alternative ideas for us to consume. When one swallows one's pride, one is repressing oneself or biting one's tongue. This is what we've been doing by being apathetic consumers of conservative mainstream gay culture. Instead of dealing with real, hectic and difficult gay issues, events such as Pride go with safer agendas and just become another fund raising event on the gay social calendar.
The annual Mother City Queer Project party, that started out as an art project to create an alternative but safe party space for everyone who was "Queer" to participate in, is nothing more than a corporate event run by a CREW bar owner and CEO of Spur. The tickets for this year's party are extortionate, perhaps to pay for pay for the overpriced Australian DJ Carl Troy, and South African electro pop acts like ZeeQ, Flash Republic and Dean Fuel yet Cape Town fashionista's are still gagging to go to it, while I'll be acheing on how much commercial house gets rammed into my ears. What happened to MCQP 's democracy of taste? In the past there were different dancefloors playing different dance music genres, but it looks as if the Toolbox Project its all going to be one homogenous inst, inst.
Gay culture in Cape Town deserves to be interesting, to have space for difference, intelligence and passion. The Swallow My Pride Art Project aims to open up this space.
Why? What has happened to gay culture in this town that we are so starved for choice? How did a vibrant, varied, huge, creative subculture get boxed into events that are nothing more than banal corporate fundraisers?
These are thoughts that crossed my mind when I was asked to organise an art exhibition for Gay Pride. For me Gay Pride has become so debased that the only art I would associate with it would be excruciating Romanesque male nudes in brown oil paint with off putting fascist undertones.
My first reaction was to have a show called Gay Shame, that asked what on earth has gone wrong with us. But the irony might have misfired in a homophobic society where gay shame is still so horribly real: the President is in cahoots with Ray MacCauley of the Rhema church, who plans to change South Africa’s progressive Constitution, starting with same-sex marriage. Zuma also failed to respond to a call by GALA to condemn imminent legislation in Uganda which would result in nothing less than an anti-gay holocaust in that country. It seems like Cape Town Gay Pride, if it were to respond to this, should be more politically poignant today than ever.
I introduced the idea of having a thought-provoking art exhibition to a few of my artist friends through facebook and the response was very positive.
I am working with an amazing group of organizers, namely William Martin, Lizza Littlewort and Dale Washkansky, on the project. After a few late night meetings and the decision to work independently from Pride, the idea of having a Queer Art Group Show has evolved into a series of process-driven art events and unconventional exhibitions. The central theme informing the project is a self-reflective critique of the construction of main stream gay culture in South Africa.
Our first exhibition concept is "Swallow My Pride", a shopping Installation, converging ideas like "Is this the Lifestyle Center, is it a performance, is it a sell-out?" "Swallow My Pride" is supposed to be a confrontational and visceral response to conservative, consumerist gay mainstream culture. We swallow when we consume, whether it be one too many drinks at the club or whether we are not able be open about our sexuality to strangers or our families. We (trannies, fags, dykes, bisexuals, queers and even straights) have to swallow all that consumerist mainstream hetero-normative shit that goes with mainstream gay culture and mainstream culture as a whole.
The shopping installation is meant to invert and subvert events like Gay Pride, presenting alternative ideas for us to consume. When one swallows one's pride, one is repressing oneself or biting one's tongue. This is what we've been doing by being apathetic consumers of conservative mainstream gay culture. Instead of dealing with real, hectic and difficult gay issues, events such as Pride go with safer agendas and just become another fund raising event on the gay social calendar.
The annual Mother City Queer Project party, that started out as an art project to create an alternative but safe party space for everyone who was "Queer" to participate in, is nothing more than a corporate event run by a CREW bar owner and CEO of Spur. The tickets for this year's party are extortionate, perhaps to pay for pay for the overpriced Australian DJ Carl Troy, and South African electro pop acts like ZeeQ, Flash Republic and Dean Fuel yet Cape Town fashionista's are still gagging to go to it, while I'll be acheing on how much commercial house gets rammed into my ears. What happened to MCQP 's democracy of taste? In the past there were different dancefloors playing different dance music genres, but it looks as if the Toolbox Project its all going to be one homogenous inst, inst.
Gay culture in Cape Town deserves to be interesting, to have space for difference, intelligence and passion. The Swallow My Pride Art Project aims to open up this space.
posted by Margaret Stone at 1:16 PM
6 Comments:
well said. Looking forward to seeing the outcome.
I am impressed that you are able to use criticism of others work as a way of creating a platform for yourself.
Your comments on your blog are at best wafer thin arguments against projects, institutions and people who have founded, celebrated and promoted and ensured that the LGBTI community is visible and active in broader society.
You sound like a modern day Guy Fawke who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
That institution still stands.
Please try not to isolate the very people you should be engaging with. Maybe a little humility and an understanding of the real facts, instead of thumb sucked fashionable comments on Gay Culture, will ensure you don't make a fool of yourself, as you clearly have done already.
This is my own personal comment and not as a representative of any organisation.
I am trying to create a niche for a minority within a minority, queer artists that are critical of mainstream culture and queers that do not want engage with mainstream gay culture in Cape Town.
I have no desire to blow up any institutions that would be foolish.
god, i know EXACTLY what you mean margaret. i LOVE the fact that you're causing some shit. DON'T STOP. i was in the gay district the other night for the first time in years, and it was difficult to stay awake. inst, inst indeed. thank the good lord for rosies - at least. odidiva, you're a prefect example of a tiny minority who bother to live creatively. vive la differance.
"I don't want to get married and I don't want to go into the army and all that stuff, though I understand people's right to want that. I am for gay trouble. I like gay troublemakers. I am most gay when I am in a voting booth..."
- John Waters
Thanks Putty!
To be fair Pride will be raising funds for a charity : The Pride Shelter Trust, a non-profit, section 21 company established to raise funds for the establishment of a shelter offering safe short-term accommodation the gay, lesbian and transgender people during crisis periods, in Cape Town.
I still feel more projects should happen in the townships, suburbs and small dorpies where gay youth are bored to death and homophobia is rife.
The parade is great for kids coming out and visibility, but how accessible is it to the majority of disadvantaged youth who actually need projects that create a sense of pride?
I have a love hate relationship with gay mainstream culture, I hate the club scene but I love the friends who go to the clubs. I love being out and proud but I hate the way by being that you are some sort of target market.
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