In her recognition of the ways in which AIDS influenced her ability to appreciate the natural environments around her, Grover demonstrates what I will call a “queer ecological” sensibility. By this label, I mean that she focuses on dimensions of her experience born in the specific history of a queer community, and uses the resulting emotional resonances and conceptual links to live in nature in a way that reflects this queer experience. Simply put: Grover sees nature through queer eyes, and what she sees is important and unique. I am not suggesting that AIDS is a uniquely “gay” disease, nor that the experience of caring for a PWA would automatically give rise to a queer ecology. But it is apparent that the San Francisco queer community was affected in particular ways by AIDS, and that this set of experiences cultivated some very particular perceptions of life, death, bodies, and nature.

“Disquisition?” Hey! A new word! Cool.

(Disquisitive being generally appropriate adjective for your comments. :)

I thought the whole idea of using the “Q” word was it’s double meaning, but then, a great aspect of gay culture are our little word plays in which incidental similarities convey more possible meanings with the ambiguity intentional. Rather like art.

Oh no, actually art.

I’m of two minds about this post and the responses. First I liked Leslie’s comments on the quality of the art — I found they made me go back and look at the photos again and again.

What didn’t make sense to me, though, was Richard’s title: “Queer art: or is all art queer?”

First, of course, the title could be a play on words — the obvious homosexual use of “queer” and the older (?) use of the “queer” meaning strange or uncanny or unusual. I’m happy with that.

But then, juxtaposing a wordplay meaning against the photos weights and changes any notion of wordplay — the subject matter is definitely queer in the sexual orientation sense.

So then I thought about the audience that Richard said, in the past, he was addressing — he’s really rehearsing for a longer work addressed, I think I’m remembering correctly, to a queer audience. In that sense, the contents of the post would be a delight for his intended audience, as we all want to be thought of as originals and as parts of a group. So it would be a compliment. And good for the intended audience of a group of like-minded fellows.

But for the A/P audience, the title seemed provocative, meant to jab a bit (unless we were to take the play on words as the intended focus). And in fact, if I remember the wordplay while I’m looking at the photos, I find the photo essay somewhat funny. Of course, art is strange and uncanny, and of course, the notion that all art is about the sexual relationships of two (or more) men is strange and uncanny. Also a bit silly, since art is about a whole lot of other stuff.

I think that art which features activities normally associated with gay men is definitely in the same category as the Dinner Party, although they aren’t about the same subject (ie Sex), since the DP is focused on Great Women and their gender as evidenced by the motif of the vagina; and Richard’s photos are focused on a vision of ordinary (and perhaps extraordinary) gay men as evidenced through the multitude of attitudes and appearances that they appear in.

Finally, if you are an artist, and your sexual orientation is gay, then I think that yes, indeed, all art is gay — just as all the characters in your dreams are you. I don’t believe that as artists we can divorce ourselves from ourselves, and so in that sense, whatever sexual orientation or desires or habits or relationships we hold will be part of the art.

So there’s a disquisition in words which perhaps will make Richard tear out his hair in despair. Richard, do you have enough hair to tear out?