Perverters of Culture — Homocult, Queercore and Public Space (Introduction)
This is part 2 of the dissertation I wrote for my Masters in art history with the Open University, which I completed in October 2022. It’s also the basis of the PhD I’ll be starting at the end of 2023. This is pretty much exactly as it was when I submitted it, at some point I hope to do some posts/videos talking about the issues it explores in a less academic/more accessible style. I’ve uploaded the bibliography, but unfortunately the Medium formatting doesn’t allow footnotes. If you’d like to see a version with footnotes intact please do get in touch.
The question the dissertation is answering is: “In What Ways Were Homocult’s Interventions Into Public Space A Response To Queer Marginalisation?”
Chapter links:
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Visibility and Invisibility
- Chapter 2: Queercore and Anti-assimilationism
- Chapter 3: Public Space and Queer Perspectives
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
Introduction
Homocult were an anonymous queer art collective based in Manchester that emerged in 1991. They made posters combining found images and provocative text that dealt with issues of cis-het normativity and homo/transphobia, class issues, capitalism and assimilationist lesbian and gay politics. These were reproduced on xerographic copy machines and pasted in public streets in their home city of Manchester and beyond, and shared through publications to allow others to do the same. They introduced the anti-assimilationist, punk-inspired cultural and political movement known as Queercore to the UK and were one of the first groups in the country to publicly describe themselves using the reclaimed slur ‘queer.’ Homocult described themselves as ‘Perverters of culture’ and were divisive amongst gay activists because of their confrontational language and criticisms of mainstream lesbian and gay organisations.
In 1992, Homocult published a book of their work titled Queer With Class: The First Book of Homocult (sometimes listed as Queer With Class: Homocult Perverters of Culture). This untitled image (1), taken from that book, is representative of their work. The concrete flats and car park, a typical image of urban working-class life, provide a setting for a middle-aged butch woman wearing leather and a young man, topless and tattooed, feeding a baby from a bottle. Large sans-serif all caps text labels the former ‘BIG DADDY’ and the latter ‘MUMMY’S BOY,’ and at the centre of the image we see the words ‘PIGS GET’ sprayed on the wall of the car park. This suggests the phrase ‘pigs get out,’ indicating an antagonistic attitude towards the police, but the positioning of the man over the text leaves ambiguity over what precisely pigs get. This piece shows Homocult’s anti-authoritarian stance, concern with the intersections of queer and working-class identities, and tongue-in-cheek humour designed to shock. The three images and two pieces of text are assembled across two A4 sheets of paper and, like all their work, it was reproduced using a xerographic copier and pasted onto walls in public space.
The early 1990s saw images of queer people enter the mainstream through advertising and media, but these images primarily reflected the values of the dominant cis-het culture that created them. Taking a social art history approach, this dissertation examines Homocult’s emergence to offer an alternative image of queerness informed by anticapitalist class politics. It explores how their work created new queer counterpublics as defined by social theorist Michael Warner in his 2002 paper (and 2005 book) ‘Publics and Counterpublics.’ Additionally, Warner’s 1999 book The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics and the Ethics of Queer Life is used to analyse Homocult’s challenge to assimilationist lesbian and gay politics. The Queercore approach to identity is similar to that of queer theorists such as Judith Butler, particularly the theories in their 1990 book Gender Trouble. However as issues of class and capitalism are central to Homocult’s work, this dissertation will primarily use a Marxist-influenced approach to queer identity as described by Rosemary Hennessey in her 1994 paper ‘Queer Visibility in Commodity Culture’ and subsequent 2017 book Profit and Pleasure: Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism.
Homocult’s work has not been discussed in-depth either within or outside academia despite contemporaneous publications suggesting they had a significant impact on queer communities and culture at the time. They are often referenced as an example of anti-assimilationist queer activist groups alongside well-known collectives such as the UK based OutRage! and New York collective Queer Nation. However most of these references are brief and do not include images or discuss their work in depth. For example, Journalist Terry Sanderson references Homocult in his Gay Time column ‘Media Watch’ in 1992, and in a 1999 essay, lesbian activist Tamsin Wilton defines ‘queer’ as ‘[…] the cultural and political interventions of activist groups such as Quer Nation and Homocult.’ The assumption that readers would be familiar with Homocult suggests they were being discussed in media that is now lost to us. In 1993, they were described in the radical feminist magazine Trouble & Strife as the ‘Most notable’ example of activism critical of the lesbian and gay mainstream and as having ‘[…] achieved more than an ounce of notoriety.’ This evidence of Homocult’s infamy during the 1990s raises the question of why they have not received the attention and research of their contemporaries and suggests a gap in current research that this dissertation hopes to rectify.
By approaching Homocult’s work from an art historical perspective this dissertation hopes to shed light on how the images they produced caused this impact and how their work relates to urban visual culture. Analysing Homocult’s work through an art historical lens allows a better understanding of how it relates to the questions of visibility that are central to this discussion; what people, ideas and art are able to be visible, the ways those who have been erased can become visible, what different kinds of visibility exist and what their benefits and risks of them are. Some creators who work outside art institutions and position themselves in opposition to them as Homocult do reject the term ‘art’ as too closely tied to these institutions. However, we can infer from the handful of art exhibitions that have featured Homocult’s work that they are comfortable with this label. As institutional models of art give a significant amount of power to arts institutions over culture and contribute to the marginalisation of those excluded from them, this dissertation will apply the term widely to include all created images. Homocult’s relationship to institutions and queer people’s erasure from and assimilation into them will be central to this dissertation.
This dissertation brings together available primary sources, including Homocult’s book Queer With Class and contemporaneous publications that feature or mention them or give insight into the culture Homocult emerged from. These will be used alongside research on similar work that can be applied to Homocult, including street art, zines and the art of xerography. A key text is Adjusted Margin: Xerography, Art and Activism in the Late Twentieth Century by Kate Eichhorn, which explores how the rise of xerographic copy machines allowed queer artists and activists to build new counterpublics and make themselves visible. Another is design historian Teal Triggs’ 2006 paper ‘Scissors and Glue: Punk Fanzines and the Creation of a DIY Aesthetic,’ which acts as a framework for visual analyses of Homocult’s work. There has been significantly more research on Queercore art and culture from the USA and Canada than the UK, for example, queer historian Curran Nault’s 2018 book Queercore: Queer Punk Media Subculture, and this will be applied where applicable. Sources that do cover the UK include zine creator and writer Amy Spencer’s 2005 book DIY: The Rise of Lo-Fi Culture, which has a section on UK Queercore that heavily features Homocult.
The term ‘queer’ is very complex and can refer to many different things, including queer politics, queer theory, and a synonym for the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole. It is particularly complex when discussing this period of activism when, as discussed in chapter two, a person or organisation describing themselves as ‘queer’ as opposed to ‘lesbian’ or ‘gay’ (or ‘lesbian and gay) communicated a specific politics and approach to activism and culture. For simplicity, this dissertation uses the term ‘queer’ to describe people and narratives that are not entirely heterosexual or cisgender, with the acknowledgement that doing so attaches the label to some who would vehemently reject it.
Homocult emerged from a cultural movement known as ‘Queercore,’ which Nault defines as ‘[…] a configuration of artistically minded gender/sexual dissidents who annex punk practices and aesthetics to challenge the oppressions of the mainstream and the lifeless sexual politics and assimilationist tendencies of dominant gay and lesbian society.’ Those who participated in this subculture frequently referred to it simply as ‘queer,’ but for clarity this dissertation uses the term ‘Queercore’ to describe all work that meets this definition. This dissertation will go into more depth about the meaning of Queercore in chapter two. Zines are a medium that was important to Queercore culture and are discussed in this dissertation. These are self-published magazines/booklets, usually printed using xerographic copiers and stapled and are created in small runs by an individual or small group and distributed for free or sold for the cost of making them. The term “punk” is also complex and often hard to specify, but for brevity’s sake it is used here to refer to the cultural movements which emerged in the 1970s and positioned themselves in opposition to mainstream culture, particularly the commercial production of music and art.
This dissertation uses the term ‘cis-het’ as an abbreviation for cisgender and heterosexual, cisgender being an antonym of transgender meaning a person whose gender is always congruent with their sex assigned at birth. Here it is used where other writers use ‘straight’ or ‘heterosexual’ to emphasise that discussions of queer people, narratives, and spaces refer to transgressions of both sexuality/sexual orientation and gender.
Chapter one introduces the complex issue of queer marginalisation and visibility within public space and institutions. It looks at the ways Homocult and their work have been affected by and navigated these issues and how those working within institutions can approach artwork created outside of them. Chapter two discusses Homocult’s emergence as a reaction to gay assimilationist politics and queer commodification. Chapter three explores ideas of public space and queer space and how Homocult recontextualise images to reveal erased queer perspectives. Most of the images of Homocult’s work in this dissertation are from their book Queer With Class, and as the pages of the book are not numbered, they are referenced by taking the front cover as page one. All Homocult’s work is untitled, however as their work includes text individual works will be referred to using the most prominent text they feature. Homocult’s work features language some may find offensive, and this is is replicated here to present the work as intended.
There have been many different artistic responses to queer marginalisation and perspectives on how best to challenge it. This research is particularly relevant in the current climate where homo/transphobia is rising and the rights and protections of queer people are under threat, despite advances in many areas. The influence of Homocult’s work appears to have been recognised while they were active, however they seem to have disappeared from cultural awareness in the thirty years since. This dissertation will hopefully act as a step towards rectifying this and help show their work’s relevance to the history of art and queer activism.
