Residential Learning Program （RLP） On-site Report Vol.2
〜 Theme: LGBTQ and Art 〜
The theme of today’s RLP was “LGBTQ and Art.”
In the contemporary society that calls for tolerance to accept diversity,
it is important to learn about LGBTQ and
see things from that point of view.
Keishiryo Dormitory, where students
from different parts of the world with different racial,
gender and cultural backgrounds live together,
is an ideal environment to learn about such a perspective.
Students in attendance learned about the link
between art and society through the lecture and discussion,
and deepened their awareness of how they see LGBTQ
through the artworks introduced in the program.
Program starts
The speaker today was Associate Professor KANNO Yuka of Doshisha University Graduate School of Global Studies, who specializes in gender, sexuality and racial issues in cinema and contemporary art. Participated by many international students, today’s program was held bilingually in Japanese and English and in an interactive manner with the speaker often inviting students to give their opinions.
Learning how art is connected with society
The program began with the question, “What is art to you?” Some of the participants answered that art seems highbrow, unapproachable or difficult and detached from the real society. But in fact, Associate Professor Kanno explained, art is connected very closely with society. The first example she introduced was the Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous group of artists formed in 1985. Wearing gorilla masks to oppose the “beautiful” and “gentle” image expected of female artists under lookism, they are devoted to exposing sexism, racism and censorship within the art world.
A bold message breaking the stereotype of art
One of their famous artworks is the piece that criticized the paucity of female artists while most of the nude pictures in art museums featured females, with the sarcastic message of “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum?” placed along with the image of a naked woman lying with a gorilla mask. Associate Professor Kanno also introduced other works of theirs, and participants were eager to respond when asked what they thought the intentions behind them were. Associate Professor Kanno explained that the Guerrilla Girls’ method of expression gave a shock to the art world, in that they conveyed a very strong message that challenged the belief that art was something unparalleled and exalted, and that they denied the originality and aura of art by making their works duplicable.
Next, Associate Professor Kanno introduced the art created through AIDS activism. Starting amidst the global spread of AIDS in the 1980s, AIDS activism is the movement by people with AIDS and their families, who were isolated by prejudice and discrimination, for the purpose of gaining understanding from the society and protecting their rights. The one showed in the program was “silence = death” by Gran Fury, who worked in the famous AIDS activist group ACTUP.
The piece is memorable for its pink triangle standing out in the extremely simple design. In response to a student who asked whether it was taken from the inverted pink triangle marked on gay men in Nazi concentration camps, Associate Professor Kanno confirmed that it was in fact the mark used by Nazi Germany, but turned upside down by Gran Fury to make it a symbol of AIDS activism, with the aim of expressing solidarity to their fellow gays who died without any support and protest against the government that does nothing. She also added that the simple and straightforward phrase “silence ＝ death” effectively expresses their statement, “We refuse to die in silence.”
Strong will of artists that move the society
After introducing a few more artworks, Associate Professor Kanno presented a major point in common between these art projects in AIDS activism and the aforementioned feminism movement by the Guerrilla Girls, which is that they both started from the artists’ strong will to convey their message against the social problems of the time. Conveying the artist’s ardent message to the society with clear-cut visuals and catchy expressions gave the viewers the opportunity to think about such social issues. The example of how learning about AIDS activism artworks can lead to learning about the immigrant issues of the time and the homophobia caused by the spread of HIV made us feel the close link between art and society.
How to interpret LGBTQ-themed artworks
The second half went on in a workshop style where a variety of artworks about LGBTQ were shown on the screen and the participants discussed what interpretations can be made of them. Photographs, paintings and other artworks by artists from different countries were introduced, ranging from the installation by Félix González (United States) to works by Claude Cahun (France), Hannah Höch (Germany), Lionel Wendt (Sri Lanka), Marlow Moss (United States), Zilia Sánchez (Cuba), and Carmela García (Spain), and we discussed what messages we got from them.
Among them, the photograph by Claude Cahun made a particularly strong impression. It was a gender-bending work of art that transcended the fixed image of gender, with the combination of the flattened chest and the masculine hairstyle and feminine symbols like hearts. Associate Professor Kanno explained how this piece has been reappraised as queer art in recent years.
Being aware of unconscious bias through art
The work by Marlow Moss, with its abstract design consisting of cold geometric shapes and lines, convinced the majority of participants that it would be by a male artist, so it took the audience by surprise when it was revealed to be created by a female artist. It made us realize how shapes like rectangles and straight lines, which in appearance seem unrelated to gender and sexuality, were associated with something by our unconscious stereotyping, and how we unconsciously genderize pieces of information that do not originally have any element of gender in them. The same applies not only to paintings but to photography as well. When Associate Professor Kanno told us that considering when and where the photo was taken and what kind of person the subject was would give you an entirely different interpretation, I felt that the same goes in our daily life as well.
In conclusion
The LGBTQ artworks shown in this program made me become aware of how we have more biased view than we thought of the gender and sexuality of artists. Associate Professor Kanno said that seeing artworks with a bit of that awareness would give us an entirely different perspective. I believe that her words at the end of the program, “you can find representations of LGBTQ in films and novels as well, so think about that when you see or read them, it will be a very good exercise of thinking about sexuality and gender issues,” will remain in the audience as an important advice for reconsidering the stereotype of LGBTQ in their own minds. The program taught us a valuable perspective not only in our appreciation of art, but also in our consideration of people and matters around us.
