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Great Refusal Not Just About Sexuality
On November 15 art blog Hyperallergic posted “Queer Art’s Not Just About Gender: A Chicago Art Survey”—the second article by writer Alicia Eler centering on The Great Refusal: Taking on New Queer Aesthetics at SAIC’s Sullivan Galleries. Arguing the current queer aesthetic “is one that considers artists working in non-normative modes of creating, and not so much about same-sex lovin,” Eler consults Oli Rodriquez—co-curator of the exhibition and professor of Photography at SAIC. “I think about queer as the intersectionality of race, class, and gender, of work that is always questioning and critiquing, and not just being passive,” Rodriguez says. “It’s about instilling a new notion of queerness that doesn’t deal with sexuality or sex.” Eler highlights the dialogue resulting from the exhibitions inclusive composition, which combines work from several decades and presents projects by established artists alongside graduate and undergraduate student work. “I don’t think there is a single queer aesthetic, and that’s the large part of the show being such an eclectic mix, smashing together an intergenerational dialogue,” Rodriguez says. “Something from the 1980s hangs right next to something made this year, in 2012.”
