Queering up Design

j er r y lo c k a b y

QUEER queer the

in context

the evolution of queer identit y within the contex t of queer ar t

8.

1 6.

CON TENTS 5 INTRODUCTION 8.

TEENAGE ANGST 11 THE BULLY AND THE BUS DRIVER 14 A MOTHER’S STORY 16 FROM THE UNDERGROUND

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37 OF QUEER IDENTITY

INTRO DUC TION

AR T IST STAT E ME N T

The term “queer” as a term to describe gay men, lesbians, and other non-conforming sexual identities, has evolved over the past 100 years and parallels the struggles of LGBTQ+ people to achieve equal rights, marriage equality, protection in housing and employment, and an end to stigmatization, harassment, and oppression.

Growing up in the South, “queer” was a term still used as a slur, though there is an ongoing reclamation effort that began in the mid20th century. In seeking to define the effect of queer designers on contemporary graphic design and other fine arts, I have undertaken research into the experience of “queer” artists from the early 20th century to the mid 1980s, which I hope to use to contextualize my own experience growing up queer and the stigmatization and harassment I faced, as well as the support and encouragement I experienced, which led me to pursue graphic design as a career. Using my graphic design skills, as well as my writing and research skills, I have worked to combine image making with poetry, prose and research to put my experience into perspective.

[ NE XT SPR E A D ]

FUCKED UP. KNOCKED DOWN

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I have collected these images, poetry, prose and research into a book that can be used as a starting point for my thesis research.

I’ve used this medium to feature images, writing and type to present a narrative that includes the account of a particularly brutal encounter I had with my bully, a story my mother chronicled of her experience as the mother of a queer son in her own words, discovering her child’s sexuality and the pain of learning of his struggles with selfidentity and the hate he faced from his peers. I have also included articles I have written about two historically significant queer artists from the 20th century, one from the beginning of the century and one whose work was contemporaneous with my own journey as a queer teenager.

The goal of my thesis work will be to contextualize the contemporary queer experience by bringing into focus the lived experiences of queer artists over the past century. As a graphic designer, I will illustrate the evolution of the idea of ‘queer’ from one of degradation and oppression into one of power and freedom.

The focus of my research will be the impact of queer stigmatization, harassment, and oppression, and an examination of the struggles and progress the queer community has seen over the past century.

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T EENAGE ANGS T

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T H E BU L LY A ND T H E B US DR I V E R I was in fifth grade when I was first called a faggot. I hadn’t even reached puberty yet and didn’t even know myself.

I was bullied from that moment until the end of my high school tenure. A year later, my mom turned to me in the kitchen and casually asked me, “Do you like boys or girls?”

All I could do was break down and cry. She held me while I cried and told me that she loved me no matter what. She has been a fierce ally ever since.

At school, however, things only got worse for me. I was pushed around and called a faggot every single day.

Things got so bad, I begged my mom to let me go live with my dad, thinking it would be better there.

It wasn’t.

I attended my sophomore year at Broadmoor High School in Baton Rouge. I was a member of both the choir and a show choir that performed for the school often. I was also a member of the marching band, playing the alto sax, as well as the thespians club. I was in every stage production and played the lead in several plays.

I soon learned that even within those groups, I was shunned as a fag. I made friends who were going through similar things, but we rarely spoke about it.

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And then the worst day of my

me home on the bus and kick my

life to that point happened.

ass. He lived two blocks from me

It almost goes without saying

and word spread like wildfire.

that the football team mostly had

When I boarded the bus, there he

only animus toward me, though

was. He spent the 20-minute ride

I was secretly dating one on the

taunting me and laughing about

star quarterbacks. One day, after

how he was going to beat me up.

being taunted by the same jerk for

Keep in mind, he was a football

months, I finally shot back after

player and about twice my size.

he once again called me fag.

I got off the bus two stops before

Turns out, that was not a smart

my actual stop, as my step-brother

move. Brett (not his real name)

and I had discovered a path through

announced that he was going to

the woods between there and

let another football player drive his truck home so he could follow

[ IMAGE] AT LA VOLOREST, AS EOSMITO

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my house. This caught him offguard, as his chance

[IM AGE] VOLE MA VEL ISCIUM REPE CUM QUE VENT EM EXPERNA TIBUSDAM QUI VOLESTE COMNIENDAE ASPERUM.

to beat me up seemed to be slipping away.

As I arrived at my house, a crowd had gathered.

The whole fucking school showed up to watch me get my faggot ass kicked. I tried to run into my house, but he caught me just before I made it and threw me to the ground. In my father’s front yard!

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A MO T HER ’S S T ORY I left home at 18 when I joined the

me that he would grow out of it.

Navy, where I met my children’s

By the time he was 12, not much

father. I had three sons and a

had changed. He liked to stay inside

daughter. When my youngest boy

and play the piano or help me in

was five years old, I became worried

the kitchen. He refused to do any

because he played with dolls and

“boy” things like play sports, so I

liked to put on my dresses. I called

once again turned to my mother.

my mother crying, and she assured

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She told me, “Mija, you’re going

of this office by your fucking

to have to face that fact that he

hair and show you what a real

is gay. And you will love him just

bite feels like. No wonder

the same.” She encouraged me

your son if a fucking bully;

to talk to him to let him know I

his mother is a stupid cunt!”

loved him no matter what, but I hesitated, wanting to allow him to decide when he was ready to come out to me.

Sadly, this was only the beginning of what would be the worst years of my life. I felt so powerless to help my

The first time I learned of him being

son, even when he finally

bullied by other kids was when I

came out to me. I felt like

was called to his middle school by

a bad mother, and it but a

the nurse. His lip had been split

strain on our relationship. He

open and I had to rush him to the

would up going to live with

hospital where they had to stitch

his father in his sophomore

up his lip.Since he hadn’t come out

year of high school, which

me, I had no idea what to do about

turned out to be the worst

it. I was called to the principal’s

idea we had ever had.

office at his school, where I was confronted by the bully’s mother!

She claimed that my baby bit her son, and threatened to sue me. I

[ IMAGE ] (LE FT) US, ET AUT DOLOR MAXIMPE ESCIMI. XIM ET PARCHILIT, QUE CONSENTO TEM QUATEM [ IMAGE ] (RIGH T) DAM INVENDANT. APIT, OMNIMAIO. ULLA SAE NOS REM. UDA VOLUPTATQUAS ES DOLUP

said to her, “Are you fucking kidding me?! Your son attacked my son unprovoked, punched him in the mouth so badly he had to be rushed the hospital to have stitches in his lip, and now you think you’re going

ESEQUE NUSDAE. MI, OMNITIA ACIT OMNIS NIMODIS ABOREPELESSI DESTRUM QUIST ET LAM RERFERRO EXERFER IBUSDAM FUGITIS SERE VOLO DOLUPTIIS AUT FUGITATIUNDA NES ENDIOREROVIT LACEPERA CORIO. PA CON PORATUR? UGA. TATEM QUAM ATUS EVELLUP TATQUAE PRERO OFFIC TORERIBUS UNT VELLUPT ATECTUM ET ERRUM VOLUPTA TIBUSAM EXCEST QUUNTO MI, TEM. ITAS MAXIMPE RUPTATI ASSINIS REPTATUR MA PLITIS ET ILIQUAE NIHITATIN CULLESEQUIS ET ODIAEST QUIS ERUM QUE NAM CON CON CONSEQUI

to threaten me?!?! I’ll drag you out

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2

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KEITH HARING FROM THE UNDERGROUND

Keith Haring, a queer designer whose life was cut short by

AIDS in 1990 at the age of 31 and who was named one of Equality Forum’s 31 Icons of LGBT History Month in 2006, invented a

universe inhabited by cartoonish figures made of staccato-like lines.1

Keith Haring’s meteoric rise in the 1980 was fueled by an instantly

recognizable pop art style which helped him rise from the New York

Underground art scene to an iconic career working with celebrities such as Grace Jones, Andy Warhol and Madonna.2

Keith Haring’s career path was unconventional, moving to

New York in 1979 and dropping out of the Ivy School of Professional

Art after two semesters. Haring took a maintenance job at the

Pittsburgh Arts and Craft Center, which gave him the opportunity

to listen to artist lectures and influenced him into considering public

art. He studied art on his own, though he eventually enrolled at

New York City’s School of Visual Arts.3

1 Andrew, Yarrow L. “Keith Haring, Artist, Dies at 31; Career Began in Subway Graffiti.” The New York Times, 3 Feb. 1990, p. 33.

2 Stewart, Jessica. “7 Facts About Pioneering Street Artist Keith Haring.” My Modern Met, 17 Feb. 2020, mymodernmet.com/ keith-haring/.

3 Ibid.

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OF QUEER IDEN T I T Y

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THE QUEER IN CONTEXT

I’VE BEEN KNOCKED DOWN CHASED AND FUCKED UP PUSHED AROUND BRUISED UP BATTERED AND BEATEN STRUCK HARD PUNCHED OUT PUMMELED DOWN MISTREATED BY AND ATTACKED FOR WHO I AM I’VE HAD HATE SPEWED INSULTS HURLED TERRORIZED BY FRIGHTENED BOYS

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A Q U E E R P I O NE ER PED R O C E N T E N O V AL L E N I L L A Pedro Centeno Vallenilla’s work is a hybrid of influences, from his native Venezuela to the Italian Renaissance painters like Michelangeo to the bodyworshipping Fascists. His painterly glorification of the male body made his interests apparent and there seems to be an interplay of influence with a contemporary of his, artist George Quaintance.

He idolized artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Tintoretto, Mantegna and above all, Miguel Angel. “Yo quiero tener esa fuerza, esa potencia, esa sublime sencillez, esa honda expresión que tiene Miguel Ángel en todas sus obras.”1 [I want to have that strength, that power, that sublime simplicity, that deep expression that Miguel Ángel has in all his works.]

The content of his paintings, which would distinguish him from his Venezuelan and Latin American colleagues, must be understood through his “method,” which came to him through classicism. He did not concern himself with competing in the artistic market, as he was well-to-do. Hence he silently sought his own path, though he used every opportunity to show his paintings upon returning to Caracas.

Born in Barcelona, the capital of Anzoátegui State in Venezuela, on June 13, 1904, Pedro Centeno Vallenilla entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Caracas in 1915, where he studied with Almeida Crespo and Álvarez García. He then studied law at the Central University of Venezuela, received his doctorate degree there in 1926, and after graduation he entered the diplomatic service. In 1927 he traveled to Europe, living in Paris until 1932. From 1932 he was the Venezuelan representative at the Vatican in Rome. His stay in Rome coincided with the rise of Fascism, and his art is in no small way influenced by the hyperbolic worship of the godlike male body by the Fascists.

Esteva-Grillet, R. (2012). Pedro Centeno Vallenilla: El Pintor de la Raza.

XVIII Congreso.

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From 1940 to 1944 he lived in the United States, where he did panels and murals at the Embassy of Venezuela in Washington.

When he returned to Caracas, he devoted his life entirely to painting, and he opened a school in his workshop. His first exhibitions were held at the School of Music of Caracas in 1932 and at the Charpentier Gallery in Paris in 1933. His major works are in the Embassy of Venezuela in Washington, and the Military Circle and the Legislative Palace in Caracas.

Pedro Centeno Vallenilla’s work has acquired a new significance in the eyes of today’s public or critic. Reading his work in its original context and recognizing the existence of a homoerotic aesthetic, which is reflected throughout the various stages of his painting, reveals an artistic manifestation of homosexual desire. His contributions to this aesthetic enabled the gay community to win a space within the artistic field.2 Many other artists developed that aesthetic, even before words like homosexual or gay become relevant to identify and qualify homosexuals. In the early 20th Century, the word queer was more common and derogatory, until being “reclaimed” in the 1960s. Homoerotic representations are found throughout the ancient history of art: many of them show explicit scenes, others hardly suggest the question of homosexuality in a subtle or unspoken way. Homoeroticism in Greek art, for example, had an infinity for amphorae and vessels decorated with scenes of sexual content. For the Greeks, homosexual relations were a common practice among men: it implied, in addition to an obviously sexual relationship, a pedagogical activity between older men and younger.

Centeno’s work, scarcely commented on within the history of Venezuelan art, demonstrates the epitome of postmodernity; … escenario en el cual el planteamiento de los derechos de la diversidad sexual, la existencia de una nueva experiencia de lo erótico y el imperio de un marcado individualismo crean las condiciones para leer esa obra desde la propia experiencia 2

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Mejías B., Juan M. “Aproximación a Una Estetica Homoerotica En La Obra De Pedro Centeno Vallenilla.” Universidad Central de Venezuela, 2009, pp. 60–61.

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subjetiva del crítico. Se trata de confrontar dos modos de ver, en dos tiempos, al abordar la misma obra de Centeno Vallenilla.”3 [a scene in which the approach to sexual rights, the existence of a new experience of the erotic, and the rule of a strong individualism create the conditions to read Centeno Vallenilla’s oubre from the critic’s own subjective experience. It is about confronting two ways of seeing, in two different time periods, when addressing the same work by Centeno Vallenilla.]

A comprehensive study conducted out by Francisco Da Antonio for the only retrospective exhibition for Centeno Vallenilla’s paintings, exposes the contempt and marginalization to which the extensive work of this Venezuelan artist has been subjected, forgotten and relegated by derogatory qualifiers.4 Ibid., p. 61.

Mejías B., Juan M. “Aproximación a Una Estetica Homoerotica En La Obra De Pedro Centeno Vallenilla.” Universidad Central de Venezuela, 2009, p. 62.

3 4

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Pedro Centeno Vallenilla was an artist who enjoyed a privileged social and cultural position, which allowed him the opportunity to travel the Italy under the guidelines of French academicism, where he experienced the works of the great masters of painting. During this time, he also contributed, with his brush, to the consolidation of the ideal symbolic landscape that fascism requires, being praised gratifyingly by Benito Mussolini himself.5 Influenced by the Pre-Rafaelites and symbolism, Centeno Vallenilla painted Elevación, described by one spectator of the time “El asunto es de un simbolismo lleno de emoción y delicadeza.”6 [The matter is one of symbolism full of emotion and delicacy.]

Centeno Vallenilla actively participated in group exhibitions, particularly in Italy: with the Cultori e Amatori d’Arte in 1926, where he exhibited, among others, his painting Sinfonía Heroica [Heroic Symphony], where a group of half-naked young men parade from left to right in front of the viewer, accompanied by two dressed women, a young woman in a contemporary style (low-cut dress, long hair), the other old woman (in black and head covered with a cloak) and two children. In the background, through the trees, the sea and ​​ an island are presented. The sensual and decadent air that it presents, recalls a work from 1898, by the French Jean Delville, The School of Plato (Musée D’Orsay, Paris), which also presents us with a group of young people, totally naked, with mannered poses and languid glances towards the spectator, surrounding the old teacher, Plato, absentmindedly attending a lesson. Centeno Vallenilla included some of the same themes in Sinfonía Tropical [Tropical Symphony], with which he participated in the International Exhibition of Liege (Belgium) in 1928, and in the inaugural Exposición de Artistas Latinoamericanos living in Italy.7 In this vast group of work, where the young painter seems to take pleasure in making fanciful combinations of indigenous and European types, with ostentatious luxury of details (large Ibid.

Imber, Sofía. Pedro Centeno Vallenilla. Caracas: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, 1991. Cited by Mejías.

7 Esteva-Grillet, Roldán. “Pedro Centeno Vallenilla: El Pintor de la Raza.” XVIII Congreso, 2012, p. 2 5

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orchids, an opulent red stone, a bunch of bananas).8 Back in Caracas, in 1944 he created a version in colored pencils called Sinfonía Malembe, for which he would summon the African race as a component of the racial mixture of the continent.

Centeno Vallenilla’s “plastic work,” can be read today in a gimmicky atmosphere of kitsch and the extravagant tendencies of the camp style. Such a reading may help to explain the reasons that determined the incorporation of certain images from Centeno Vallenilla’s pictorial legacy in contemporary gay imagination, in which the explicit exhibitionism of the male body constitutes an ideological value.

Carlos Yusti, in reference to Centeno Vallenilla’s work, uses the following qualifiers: “genio, amanerado, mariposón, rebelde, kitsch.”9 [genius, affected, butterfly-like (a derogatory Ibid.

Mejías B., Juan M. “Aproximación a Una Estetica Homoerotica En La

8 9

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term used to refer to homosexuals, rebellious, kitsch.]

There is a perception that something in Centeno Vallenilla’s painting presents the viewer with a cloying sensation of vulgarity. There is an apparent use of an elaborate plastic language recognized in much of his work exudes a sense of postmodern kitsch, such as Pierre and Gilles.10 In 1923, Centeno Vallenilla’s El día was chosen by the editors of a printed circulation for the cover of a brochure titled En ambiente: tu guia gay, a bimonthly publication specifically markete to the Venezuelan gay community. This “gay guide” included information on places and nightclubs throughout the country to which community members could be themselves.

El día was selected to accompany detailed information on the spaces that offer their entertainment services for gay adults, such as gyms, saunas, bars and nightclubs, massage services, selling underwear and even sex toys.11 His nationalist allegories are a reclamation of classical beauty, at a time when modernity was pointing towards a dehumanization of the arts.12 Reflecting on the manifestation of the homoerotic aesthetic in the paintings of Pedro Centeno Vallenilla, resides an attractive and mysterious character in the history of national painting—an artist who used humor and mischief to mislead everyone about his adventures, events and chronologies.

Pedro no sólo se propuso esconder su edad reinventando fechas al paso devastador de los años, cuanto preservar la imagen de una esplendorosa y dilatada juventud inmune al tiempo, a las enfermedades y al dolor. [Pedro not only proposed to hide his age by reinventing dates during the devastating passage of the years, but to preserve the image of a splendid and long-lived youth immune to time, disease and pain.]

Obra De Pedro Centeno Vallenilla.” Universidad Central de Venezuela, 2009, pp. 75–76.

10 Carlos Yusti, “El amanerado genio Pedro Centeno Vallenilla,” 2007.

Cited by Mejías 11 Mejías B., Juan M. “Aproximación a Una Estetica Homoerotica En La Obra De Pedro Centeno Vallenilla.” Universidad Central de Venezuela, 2009, p. 96.

12 Ibid., p. 97.

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QUEER