A Quagmire for Queer Art

Walking into a gallery in Boston, you are confronted by a roomful of same-sex couples arm in arm—a group of people publicly announcing their same-sex love. Instead of the canvases gracing the walls, this scene is the work of art, part of a larger series entitled "PDA: Public Displays of Acceptance." The series itself is just one of three parts of an ongoing project called "The Wedlock Project," which aims to challenge the viewer’s perceptions of gay marriage. Two married artists TTBaum and Michael Grohall began the long series in 2009 in order to spread acceptance of homosexual matrimony.

"The Wedlock Project" is just one of many artistic events aimed at the queer community in Boston. As the capital of the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in November 2003, the city has long been one of the most accepting in the country for Americans with same-sex lifestyles. Its open-mindedness is clearly reflected by its burgeoning Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) artistic scene. Still, recent events on the national level—including the suicide of homosexual Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi this September—have demonstrated that the United States is not entirely acccepting of its LGBT communities.

According to TTBaum and Grohall, art—whether it be theater, literature, visual art, or music—can be employed to alter antiquated perceptions of sexuality. The definition of ‘art’, like ‘sexuality’, is fluctuating and often ambiguous; its very fluidity lends it the power to promote active societal engagement with the complex issues like those associated with the homosexual community in America.

It might be surprising, then, to realize that Harvard—situated as it is amongst such a liberal population—seems to lack a great wealth of artistic productions and artistic organizations targeting issues of gender and sexuality at first glance. On closer inspection, though, H-BOMB Magazine, last year’s "ACT UP New York" exhibition at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, and other individual projects have sought to encourage discourse about sexuality. But in general, these works seem to garner little attention from the community at large. The lack may betray a certain level of discomfort with controversial issues of sexuality.

PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF ACCEPTANCE

TTBaum and Grohall, pioneers amongst the Boston LGBT Community, present a clear demonstration of how art can challenge perceptions of sexuality. Their ongoing project aims to inspire discourse on the controversy surrounding same-sex marriage through visual, performance, and community art.

"A lot of creativity comes from our sexuality," says TTBaum. "This is often the creative basis of my own body of work. We, as a same-sex couple, are constantly confronted with the question of how we look to the world at large."

According to TTBaum and Grohall, the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts triggered conflict within both the straight and LGBT communities--a conflict felt deeply by both artists. In "Wedlock" they seek to address these conflicts both personally and publicly.

"Gay marriage is very new in the social consciousness," says Grohall. "We don’t know how to deal with it; it doesnt really change the definition of marriage as much as it alters gender roles between equals. Thus we sought to both expose and resolve this conflict within ‘The Wedlock Project.’"

The project is composed of three consecutive parts: "Engagement," "PDA" and "Matrimony." The first part involved a month-long, multimedia exhibition in Boston’s Space 242, which showcased visual and performance artwork from TTBaum, Grohall, and six other artists. The entire enterprise opened with a live performance by the couple assuming their alter-egos, the Romeos. This performance—and indeed "Engagement" as a whole—sought to question the conventional bases of all male relationships.

The next stage of their venture engaged the public more actively. "Part Two, ‘PDA’, invited people in many different venues throughout Boston to come out and perform a public display of affection with a member of the same sex," Grohall says. "It encouraged the outsider to view this physical connection in a different light, and allowed the queer-identified people the opportunity to feel accepted by the community," he adds.

The third and final stage of the Wedlock Project is ongoing. "When we were first starting out," says Grohall, "there was a lot of controversy and a lot of confusion amongst the gay community in regards to the legalization of same-sex marriage. There was a struggle and a marked feeling of a loss of cultural identity." TTBaum and Grohall sought to create something positive from these chaotic reactions. "We have always been a community which takes tradition and makes it our own. Therefore ‘Matrimony’ is itself addressing the institution of marriage and an effort to prove to both the queer and straight communities that we can mold this institution into something which is ours, but also something very beautiful," says Grohall.

Both artists emphasize the importance of art not only as a creative outlet, but also as a medium for vital cultural discourse and social activism. To advance is social goals, the work is public and inclusive. "PDA" in particular demonstrates the ability of accessible art to engage viewers who would not usually identify with art directed towards the queer community. According to the artists, this form of art plays a vital role in the eradication of entrenched misconceptions and prejudices about the queer community.

ARTISTIC EXPERIMENTS

While Harvard may not showcase such direct artistic celebration of homosexuality, the campus does offer a range of support groups for LGBT students: these include Queer Students and Allies (QSA), the Jewish LGBT support group BAGELS, and Girlspot, an organization providing resources to the female questioning and lesbian communities. Although vital on campus, they are essentially bodies of social support without direct engagement with art.

Still, certain large-scale artistic events on campus have managed to fill the void left by the lack of specifically artistic LGBT organizations. Last year’s Carpenter Center exhibition entitled "ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987-1993" is one such potent example of the engaging power of creative art. The exhibit commemorated the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) movement of 1980s with both visual and performance art, incorporating a ream of images and posters from the gay rights movement and over 100 contemporary video interviews with surviving members of the ACT UP movement. The collection aimed to combat common misconceptions about HIV/AIDS, a disease still stigmatized due to its association with same-sex intercourse.

"ACT UP New York" is not the only recent creative work targeting perceptions of homosexuality at Harvard. April 2009 saw closeted Mormon Republicans take to the stage in the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club production of "Angels in America" performed at the Loeb. The show—a Tony Kushner play first staged in the early 1990s—explored personal experiences of homosexuality in America.

While both "ACT UP New York" and "Angels in America" directly addressed issues of sexuality and the controversy surrounding it, their ability to engage the campus as a whole was limited due to their relative impermanence.

BREAKING THE ICE

The production of art specifically addressing sexuality on Harvard’s campus is also inevitably constrained by financial concerns. QSA attempts to promote artistic installations and events on campus with a focus on sexuality, but there is inevitably a limit to the reach of their funds.

"It is expensive to have someone fly in from another city. We do not have many artistic funds to draw from to exclusively promote artistic branches on campus, and these funds are limited because they are the same funds we use for the LGBT community," says QSA Co-Chair Marco Chan ’11.

The creation and support of artistic performances responding to sexuality also faces greater obstacles of an entirely different nature: despite their universal interest, sex and sexuality are simply socially awkward topics. Thus, for the most part, it appears that the straight community at Harvard avoids both artistic and colloquial engagement with these issues. To soften the controversy associated with questions of sexuality, several productions on campus that touch on the subject couch it in humorous terms. More light-hearted treatment encourage the involvement of people who are unlikely to interact with sexuality in an emotionally targeted and reflective context like that of "ACT UP New York."

One such project, the Donkey Show, champions a comical transgression of gender representation in a setting of classic Shakespearean cross-dressing confusion. Produced by the American Repertory Theater in its OBERON club space on Arrow Street, the reimagining of William Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" benefits greatly from its informal night-club setting. The relaxed atmosphere allows the audience to feel comfortable and engaged with the theatrical action at once. Presented in a comedic context, its extreme promiscuity manages to avoid conventional societal disapproval. The show purposefully transgresses conventional male-female interactions in a bid to promote women’s empowerment. Heavily sexualized male fairies bridge the divide between the audience and the main action of the show, while female actors portray the main characters.

Assistant Director and former cast member Allegra Libonati reveled in the feeling of comic empowerment she found in playing Dimitri, the conventional masculine figure who objectifies women: "I remember playing Dimitri one night, in all of his sexual vanity and misogynistic evaluation of women, and coming off stage to have one woman yell ‘Jerk!’ at me. It was strange to have this female frustration so virulently projected upon my character. Yet it is empowering as a woman to play this role and to mock its superficiality and vileness," she says.

The Donkey Show is not, of course, the only performance on campus that capitalizes on the charged atmosphere surrounding sexuality to create its own brand of humor. The Hasty Pudding Theatricals, a group of undergraduates that produces an annual all-male cross-dressing musical in the New College Theatre, has been titillating audiences with layers of make-up, fake breasts, and high tenor solos for over 150 years. Still, this fixture within Harvard’s artistic scene does not seek to address sexuality directly. It derives its humor from a certain degree of absurdity, rather than from any hard-hitting satire of sexual norms; it takes advantage of the awkwardness surrounding issues of sexuality, rather than seeking to eradicate this discomfort.

DROPPING H-BOMB

On the other hand, the serious portrayal of sex and sexuality in an artistic setting has its own pitfalls. The 2004 debut of H-BOMB Magazine, a self-proclaimed "arts and literary magazine dedicated to exploring issues related to gender, sex, and sexuality," triggered mass media controversy. Despite the initial flurry of press attention surrounding its creation, the magazine has suffered from a lack of recognition on campus during the past few years, and its recent lack of publicity has led to financial woes. Last semester it could not find the funds necessary to print an issue.

"H-BOMB hasn’t been on the radar for a few years. We are working to counter this at the moment. We really want to create a presence here on campus, and are aiming to have enough money to at least door-drop all of the freshmen this year," says Eva M. Gillis-Buck ’11, one of the magazine’s editors. Recently, though, the future has been looking brighter for H-BOMB. "We have received a lot of support from the administration, who have proven really helpful and very pro-H-BOMB, and we get a lot of grants from [the Undergraduate Council] and from the Radcliffe trust. We get grants from gay-lesbian-trans organizations." The recent support brightens the future for H-BOMB. "People are beginning to recognize this is something that the community needs and are willing to fund that, which is wonderful," Gillis-Buck adds.

H-BOMB has seen a rejuvenation not only in its funding but in its direction. "We are trying to get the magazine back to what it first started as. [My fellow editors] and I want to return it to its roots: a little sexier, to generate more attention, and a little sluttier, sort of like a pulp magazine. We then want to direct each issue towards a different theme, so instead of each issue being similar we will have a pulpy one, a high art one, an academic one," Gillis-Buck says.

H-BOMB recognizes that there are relatively few formal outlets for students to tackle the topic of sexuality directly within a neutral arena; it aims not only to fill this gap for LGBT and straight communities. While it engages in its own breed of light humor to diffuse controversy, it tries to avoid belittling the issues surrounding sexuality. For H-BOMB, sex is something to be discussed publicly without fear of causing offense—as evinced by its name.

A SPECTRUM OF POSSIBILITIES

While it seems unlikely that any artistic movement can eradicate the controversy surrounding the LGBT community, artists like TTBaum and Grohall clearly demonstrate how important a role public art can play in social activism. This is not to say that all art addressing sexuality is progressive art; sexuality can be mocked in art just as easily as it can be respected and reconsidered. Harvard productions touching on the issues surrounding sexuality seem, at least for the time being, to sample both approaches.

—Staff writer Sarah L. Hopkinson can be reached at shopkinson@college.harvard.edu.