A Room of One’s Own: Art, institutions, and queer-friendly spaces
Institutions have a lot of control not only over what art is considered good or bad, but what is seen as art and who as an artist at all. The institutionalised ideologies and viewpoints of museums, galleries, universities etc has a history of not leaving space for queer folk, POC and members of other marginalised groups. As well as this, the institutional structure means that only those with the time and resources to dedicate to an artistic or academic career are taken seriously, barring entry for the most marginalised people and erasing them from the cultural landscape. There is a history of galleries and museums not taking work by those from non-western cultures seriously as art, instead relegating them to “anthropological object” and erasing the identity of individual artists. There has been a lot of progress made in recent years with institutions such as galleries, museums, arts competitions and funding bodies being more open to supporting and displaying the work of marginalised artists, but they still have inherent biases and control over our culture.
The landscape of art galleries (at least outside London) mostly consists of big institutions showing well established artists, small commercial galleries which focus on sales and not much in between. When I was working as an artist the only way I could exhibit my work was to pay to rent a gallery space (which I would usually have to invigilate and promote myself) then just hope that I would sell enough to at least cover my costs. One of the reasons I stopped trying to be a professional artist was frustration with the disconnect between the people I wanted to make art for and the people I needed to appeal to if I actually wanted to make any money out of it. Performance and drag (which I started doing a few years ago) feel a lot more democratic in that way because people are more likely to be able to pay a tenner for an evening’s entertainment than several hundred quid to own a handmade object (though it’s still rarely possible to actually make a living from it of course).
Commercial galleries also frustrate me because the need to sell art to survive makes them feel more like shops than galleries, and those who make art into sales people rather than artists. Their business model only allows for art that can be sold, eg paintings and sculptures, and doesn’t leave space for things like installations and video art. Ownership becomes the ultimate fulfilment of the experience of a work of art, and the gallery becomes a place to decide what art you want to have this full experience with rather than a space to fully engage with art in itself. Capitalism itself is another institution which controls what is considered art, viewing it only as worthy of the title if it can be turned into a commodity.
All this becomes even more of an issue when we’re talking about work by marginalised artists, as the only way for them to make a living from their work is to make art that appeals to those with the financial privilege to be able to support them, either wealthy art buying individuals or institutions. The improvements in representation have been welcome, but the bias is so ingrained it becomes very hard to escape, particularly for institutions which focus on historical art. Most historical art institutions haven’t changed much in the way they operate and the work they value and are very attached to the idea of the Art History Canon, which often prioritises those who were most valued by the controlling institutions of the time (which is why so much historical art has religious themes).
I understand that this is a bit of a catch 22, within a capitalist society ensuring both that art is accessible to the general public and also that artists are properly paid for their work is basically impossible without the support of institutions of some kind. One thing I’ve thought of is having tip jars for exhibitions so that viewers can contribute to supporting the artists without needing to be able to take something home with them. But it really comes down to who has control over the physical space — so many fantastic projects have failed to even get started because of lack of an appropriate space. This has been even worse over the last decade or so, with a combination of the economic crash and the dismantling of squatter rights making finding spaces to make and display art harder than ever before.
There is also the issue of the gatekeeping of culture and thought through academia — not only do you need time and money if you want to study, but the vast majority of academic writing is simply unavailable to you if you don’t have access to university libraries. I found studying my art history Masters extremely valuable, not just because I was learning new ideas and concepts to better understand the world but because this learning did fantastic things to my brain and made me feel really good. Some academics do re-edit and publish their work for a general audience but there are still lots of important and valuable ideas that rarely get seen by anyone outside of academia.
For many years I’ve had a fantasy of setting up some kind of autonomous queer community arts space, in large part inspired by the queer squats and social centres I used to go to around the country back in the aughts. This has coalesced into a more concrete plan over the last few years, in part inspired by things I read whilst studying a masters in Art history but also through the political upheval during lockdown and considering how we can best use our privilege to help those with less. I’ve clarified my thoughts on it recently, in light of thinking about all the things I’ve talked about here amongst others.
My idea is a space with a gallery plus a space for events such as talks/discussions/performances/etc (as well as a cafe and a little shop of course) that would be focused on the four pillars of Queer Community, Art, Theory and History, and which would provide opportunities for the most marginalised and excluded of people within our community to both experience and participate in the spreading of ideas and knowledge in these fields. I would also like the centre to have an independent press, as well as active podcasting/video archiving, so that the ideas and discussions can spread beyond the physical and temporal confines.
I have the idea that this would run as a charity and be funded through donations and cafe/book sales (though I definitely need to do more research into the different kinds of structures), and won’t be happening for a while yet (not only do I need to generally sort my shit out, I also need to actually finish my Masters degree before I take on any other major projects!). I feel like the main issue would be securing an appropriate building — once that’s done it seems like everything else will just fall into place, though at the same time it may be beneficial to set up the organisation first to get some experience and so possibly have some extra support for acquiring property. I am very open to talking to people with similar ideas though, whether to swap thoughts or possibly go into something together!
