Gay Amnesia Weekend


Why has gay art become so lifeless, so sexless?

What is the role of aesthetics in gay life? A special weekend programme hosted by Verdurin on Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 February 2025 and comprising a symposium alongside performances, readings, and screenings examines the artistic consequences of gay liberation and its cultural historiography.

Return to Sodom

Until not long ago, the canon of gay art and literature was inextricably linked with transgression and tragedy. Generations of queers grew up on Jean Genet’s prison prose which aesthetically linked homosexual love with criminality. Bruce LaBruce mixed blood with taboo politics in his films in the 1990s. Dennis Cooper’s celebration of violent erotic excess and suffering won the novelist a cult following.

These artefacts are uneasy records of homosexual dystopias. Today, by contrast, queer art is full of saccharine ideals that show gay love as free and easy. The symposium Return to Sodom brings contributions by Ofri Ilany, Travis Jeppesen, Vanity von Glow, and others, to trace the progressive aesthetic turn in search of today’s visionary Jean Genet.

Saturday, 22 February 2025, 2-6pm

Dorian’s Attic

Gay amnesia - the ability to forget one's own sexual history - is the apex evolutionary adaptation.

The Rainbow Museum of Queer Life is a popular Sunday attraction for the whole family. Its displays promote pride and inclusion and offer insights into the entwined nature of love and progress. Each visit is a morally corrective experience. But one room is forever closed to the public: The Dorian Gray Attic, a repository for all artefacts that are too hideous or politically dangerous to unleash on the unwitting punter.

Dorian’s Attic is a tour through this idiosyncratic collection of art from gay history that has been banned, cast out, or simply conveniently forgotten. The afternoon will feature live readings by Bertie Marshall, Travis Jeppesen, and Marcas Lancaster in response to the previous day’s inquiries. Alongside screenings of fringe video art and historical fiction, the event will reconstitute a vision of Dorian in his prime.

Sunday, 23 February, 2-6pm

Gay Amnesia is organised with Amir Naaman.

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