Queering Making: Exhibition, Histories and Potential

Painting used as poster of 'Queering Making'

Few days back when I was not in Delhi, while scrolling down my facebook wall saw an event poster of ‘Queering Making’ with mustaches on a woman’s face at glance. The concept interested me and I wanted to have a look at the show, and it was good for me that it was a two part exhibition. The first part had its opening on November 24, 2012 for viewing until December 21, 2012 at Gallery Engendered Space, Shahpurjat, New Delhi and second part of the show opened on December 1, 2012 at Abadi Art Space, Lado Sarai, New Delhi which is on view till February 23, 2013.

Both parts of the show includes the art works of eight artists, Baaraan Ljlal, Jayanta Roy, Manmeet Devgun, Pratap Morey, Raghava K K, Shivani Aggarwal, Sumit Baudh and T Venkanna; Curated by Jose Abad Lorente, Myna Mukherjee and Billy Stewart, whereas the second part of the show repeats the five artists among eight. Exploring the questions of identity, gender and sexuality, and accessing them through memory and lived experiences are the objectives of the show, which it tries to explore through paintings, photographs, mixed media installations and performances all together.

The Part-II also continue cataloging the objects, photos, audio pieces and visual memories invited as ‘individual memorabilia donations’ from Part-I and present them as an open archive, creating ‘a Queer Contemporary museum’ at the gallery. The idea behind inviting these queer memorabilia was to make the exhibition an interactive space, as Individuals/visitors could bring photographs, objects, pieces of audio/visual memories that have a personal story attached to them and to make part of the exhibition. For example people from the LGBT community has given a dwarf-sized ‘peepal tree’ to tie threads around it for wish-fulfillment and a baby doll was gifted by one queer partner to the other was preserved for a child that they were going to adopt.

Manmeet Devgun's Work

Shivani Aggarwal's Work

The exhibition tries to put up certain questions like, what defines queer? Does the decision to oppose dominant rules in society and not follow stereotypes make someone queer? Or is it someone who has a different sexual orientation? Can art that does not explicitly address queer topics reflect the identity of its maker in other ways? Apart from these questions at beginning level, a visitor who doesn’t know about the ‘Queer’ and its historical aspects may not have enjoyed/understood about the notions it tries to explore. So, the first question one needs to understand is what ‘Queer’ really means? 

The word ‘Queer’ was once commonly understood to mean ‘strange’, ‘odd’, ‘unusual’, ‘abnormal’ or ‘sick’ and was routinely applied to lesbians and gay men as a term of abuse, which later on associated with the word ‘theory’ and ‘Queer theory’ is a field of poststructuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of queer studies and women studies. Queer theory heavily influenced by the work of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, and Lauren Berlant. A primary concern in queer theory is the manner in which gender and sexuality is discussed. To think about new texts it was not merely necessary, but to think about them in radically new ways is necessary.

Queer theory explores issues of sexuality, power, and marginalized populations (woman as other) in literature, culture and society. Much of the work in queer theory, while influenced by feminist criticism, emerges from post-structural interest in fragmented, de-centered knowledge building (Nietzsche, Derrida, Foucault), language (the breakdown of sign-signifier), and psychoanalysis (Lacan). Therefore, queer theory is uncomfortable with the binary established by many feminist scholars between masculine and feminine as Hélène Cixous (following Derrida in ‘Of Grammatology’) sets up a series of binary oppositions (active/passive, sun/moon, father/mother, logos/pathos etc.). Each pair can be analyzed as a hierarchy in which the former term represents the positive and masculine and the latter the negative and feminine principle.

So, queer theory is interested in the breakdown of binaries such as male and female, the in-betweens. For example, queer theory maintains that cultural definitions of sexuality and what it means to be male and female and it believes that the distinction between ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ activities and behavior is constantly changing. It tells us the inefficiency of language to convey a complex notion as identity, especially an identity based on sexuality. It effectively re-opens the question of the relations between sexuality and gender, both as analytic categories and as lived experiences; and criticizes the gender and sexuality from narrowly conceived notions of lesbian and gay identity.

One can say, ‘Queer theory is a set of ideas based around the idea that identities are not fixed and do not determine who we are. It suggests that it is meaningless to talk in general about 'women' or any other group, as identities consist of so many elements that to assume that people can be seen collectively on the basis of one shared characteristic is wrong. Indeed, it proposes that we deliberately challenge all notions of fixed identity, in varied and non-predictable ways.’

As it heavily influenced by the Ideas given by Judith Butler, as she says, ‘There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender, identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results.' In other words, gender is a performance; it’s what you do at particular times, rather than a universal who you are. This idea of identity as free-floating, as not connected to an 'essence', but instead a performance, is one of the key ideas in queer theory. Seen in this way, our identities, gendered and otherwise, do not express some authentic inner ‘core’ self but are the dramatic effect (rather than the cause) of our performances.

Here, in concern of this exhibition visual artists come together to address this notion of ‘Queer’ through an art exhibition, in which they explore questions pertaining to identity, gender and sexuality. They have revisited the word queer to give it a larger context: of finding alternative forms of resistance to a hetero-normative society. In words of Curator Mayna Mukherjee, ‘Anyone can be queer- a single woman deciding not to get married or a woman deciding not to wear pink.’

The exhibited works lie between abstraction and representation and mark a flexible space for the expression of all aspects of non-/anti-/contra-straight cultural production and reception, as artist Baaran Ijlal’s works from her series ‘The trouble with the Red Is’ where a pregnant woman with mustaches is a strong image which seems breaking down the ‘feminine’ identity. This work reminds me of British artist and photographer Zoe Lionard’s 1995 work ‘Pin-up #1 (Jennifer Miller does Marilyn Monroe), in which as a result of the disorder of ‘hirsutism’ the growth of excessive body hair on a woman has shown. The graceful pose of this female model makes viewer aware of expectations about gender roles and also puts a comments on the norms of hairlessness in today’s visual culture. Similarly, Baaran’s other works having military boys in uniform and female underwear; or a boy putting on stockings crosses their comfort zones crying out their stories.

Baaran Ijlal's Work

Baaran Ijlal's work

Zoe Lionard’s 1995 work
‘Pin-up #1 (Jennifer Miller does Marilyn Monroe)

Manmeet Devgun presents herself as a subject to represent her identity, personal life and the ways that she experiences sex, social rules and her life circumstances. Her work ‘Odonil’ is a series of six photographs, in which she looks ‘normal’ at first glance, but the work tells her own story as she puts on a wig and changes her identity. This way the work resembles a movie scene, a personal reflection on transforming oneself. These notions of identity, desire and visual representation are scattered all around our lives and society, need is to recognize and to define.

In India where openness in talk about sexual things is a point of prohibition somewhere, there are certain rituals, festivals which give a social authority to talk about these certain matters. Where even in country sex education and co-education (in some backward villages) in schools has been a controversial subject to say it right or not, a ritualistic atmosphere of marriage gives a kind of authority to the old aged women to talk about these things. They do it in slightly different manner even by abusing or commenting waywardly. So, isn’t these sexual comments by old ladies of house comes under their queer behavior? In general terms they are against the accepted norms of the society but this space of social gathering in some ritualistic manner (because in India marriages are considered as a ritual/religious institution) they are normally accepted. 

A similar behavior could be seen in other example of the satsang/kirtan generally organized at houses by housewives in order to give tribute to their concerned God/Goddess. These kinds of gatherings are organized by some religious purposes but at the same time they are occasion of a complete get together with all family members and friends etc. And the dance of ladies of all age groups on the music/words of religious songs (Bhajans) is a thing comes easily to watch. Whether purpose is ritualized but gaze on their bodies works here in similar manner, so clearly it shows the ‘queer’ here. A festival of ‘Shringar Rasa’ Holi also shows the same thing as stated above. And we generally come to hear the incidents of coming of ‘devi’ in women which starts to act like devi (Durga, Kali etc.) and all the old aged/senior members even starts worshiping these ladies. This behavior of women shows their repressed desires to achieve power/authority.

Some dance forms and nukkad nataks also has these kind of ‘queer’ things within themselves. For instance one of famous dance form of Orissa ‘Gotipua’ is executed by a boy or a group of boys but in female costumes. In Oriya language, ‘Goti’ means ‘single’ and ‘Pua’ means ‘boy’. For centuries, the Gotipua dance has been performed in Orissa by young boys who dress up as female to praise Lord Jagannath and Lord Krishna. The actual form of the dance is executed by a group of boys who perform acrobatic figures inspired by the life of Radha & Krishna. The boys start to learn dance at an early age until the adolescence, when their androgynous look is fading.

Similarly classical dance-drama of Kerala, in Kathakali man dances as a female and we can take ‘Tamasha’ of Maharashtra to form another good example of ‘queer’. Tamasha is a traditional Marathi folk art form often with singing and dancing, widely performed by local or travelling theatre groups within the state of Maharashtra, India. In all these examples we see the rituals/religion gives an authority to queer behaviors/acts and in country like India it became more important to talk about these issues. 

A scene of Gotipua dance of Orissa

Kathakali dance of Kerala

Tamasha dance of Maharashtra

Apart from these things, the call for gender trouble has obvious media implications, since the mass media is the primary means for alternative images to be disseminated. The media is therefore the site upon which the 'semiotic war' (a war of symbols, of how things are represented) has taken place. And another reason is mass media talks about or shows mostly fixed identities so queer theory also talks about mass media and popular culture.

Mostly in commercial movies/films we see some accepted and expected norms about bodies of film stars, as being a popular body film star represents an iconic image in audience’s mind. Released in some recent years a movie named ‘Om Shanti Om’ introduced Shahrukh Khan as a Six Packed shirtless body to us. Although during the earlier years of Hindi Cinema actor like Amitabh Bhachchan didn’t have any problem with shirted/covered body image. Because he was the accepted body of his time and today’s actor/stars are more concerned in creating/developing the ‘expected’ desires of viewers. 

Six packed/Shirtless Image of Shahrukh Khan

Amitabh's famous/excepted shirted/covered Image 

Popular media like television, cinema, films etc. creates an iconic body image in audience mind. Like you should zero size figured like Kareena Kapoor, you should have brown eyes like Hritik Roshan etc. if you want to have a perfect/desirable body. But these things are merely created for attract people which brings their own identity into passiveness. These unnatural notions of popular media and popular image directly shows the ‘queerness’. For example writer Ashok Rao states in his book ‘Yarana’ that film actresses are desirable bodies but you cannot touch them, what you can do is only willing about them so it brings Homosexual feeling in mind of audience.

Kareena Kapoor as Zero sized figure 

This kind of Homosexual feel we can clearly see in one of currently extremely popular song acted by actress Kaitreena Kaif, ‘Sheela ki Jawani…’ In lyrics of the song words acted by Kaif, ‘Kisi or ki mujhko jarurat kya...Main to khud se pyar jatau...’ is one of direct aspect of Homosexuality and also brings the Narcissistic tendencies of the character.

Kaitreena Kaif in song 'Sheela ki Jawani'

Queer recognizes the impossibility of moving outside current conceptions of sexuality. Queer theory suggests negotiating these limits. We can think about how these boundaries are not merely the fact that they exist, but also how they are created, regulated, and contested. As Judith Butler talks about shifting identities of Gender, men have feminine qualities and women have masculine qualities within. We can see few iconic images in Indian politics those had a power of masculine character within their female identities like of Indira Gandhi, Kiran Bedi and one other can be Benazir Bhutto also who was president of Pakistan. 

Indira Gandhi

Kiran Bedi

Benazir Bhutto

In the time period of Bhakti Movement in Indian literature we may take example of an iconic figure of Meerabai, who is known of her devotion towards lord Krishna. We know very well that Meerabai was a child widow and if we put the desires of love of a young woman, it may find the practical reasons of that devotion of Meera towards Krishna. In form of religious love a young widow can find her desires within her God; and here religion has given authority to its devotee. This is somewhat the queer behavior of Meerabai in that time’s social and political circumstances. This positioning of Meerabai as an iconic figure in Indian history one can trace over the images of Mahatama Gandhi and Mahadevi Verma as well, but they give nationalistic connotations. Mahatama Gandhi is known as a father of nation and Mahadevi Verma is known for her nationalistic writings and poetry in Hindi Literature.

Meerabai: Devotee of Lord Krishna

Mahatama Gandhi

Mahadevi Verma

Queer describes those gestures or analytical models which dramatize incoherencies in the allegedly stable relations between chromosomal sex, gender and sexual desire. Resisting those models of stability which claims heterosexuality as its origin, queer focuses on mismatches between sex, gender and desire. Institutionally, queer has been associated most prominently with lesbian and gay subjects, but its analytic framework also includes such topics as cross-dressing, hermaphroditism, gender ambiguity and gender-corrective surgery. As transvestite performance or academic deconstruction, queer locates and exploits the incoherencies in those terms which stabilize heterosexuality. Demonstrating the impossibility of any ‘natural’ sexuality, it calls into question even such apparently unproblematic terms as 'man' and 'woman'.

Queer is always an identity under construction, a site of permanent becoming, ‘utopic in its negativity, queer theory curves endlessly toward a realization that its realization remains impossible’  The extent to which different theorists have emphasized the unknown potential of queer suggests that its most enabling characteristic may well be its potential for looking forward without anticipating the future. And that has done by ‘Queering Making’ in context of an art exhibition.

The examples cited above are the courtesy of class lectures taken by Asst. Professor Mrinal Kulkarni.