This Pride Month Visit QUEER: Stories From The NGV Collection
Image: NGV Queer Collection: Stuck on you
Just in case you didn’t know, June is pretty fabulous, and it’s not just because we celebrate the birthday of the world’s biggest Queen!
Actually, it’s because it’s Pride month – the absolute perfect time to learn more about the history of the LGBTQI community, and the National Gallery Victoria has you covered, with the current exhibition taking place on Level Three of the NGV International until the 21st of August, entitled – QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection.
“QUEER shines a light on the NGV Collection to examine and reveal the queer stories works of art can tell. This exhibition of works from the NGV Collection spans historical eras and diverse media including painting, drawing, photography, decorative arts, fashion, video, sculpture, and design and explores queerness as an expression of sexuality and gender, a political movement, a sensibility, and as an attitude that defies fixed definition.”
Queer Lens
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Drawing on the extensive collection from the vaults of the National Gallery Victoria, QUEER also includes informative talks held in March at the Gallery but recorded for prosperity and accessible on the National Gallery Victoria website and includes fascinating talks introducing the themes and stories from the exhibition.
“Rather than attempting to provide a definitive history of queer art, the exhibition explores the NGV Collection from a queer perspective, presenting and interpreting queer concepts and stories. Many works in the exhibition are by artists who identify as queer; some are by artists who lived in times when such identification was not possible; and some works are not by queer artists but have a connection to queer histories.”
Another draw of the exhibition features one of Australia’s Iconic Drag performers and presenters, authors and advocate for queer rights, the one and only Courtney Act, in a five-part podcast series produced by the NGV and entitled Queer: Stories from the NGV Collection with Courtney Act.
Excavating Queer History
“The exhibition highlights that queerness is intersectional, and that LGBTQ+ rights are interwoven with other political and equality movements. Beyond exploring new layers of interpretation and reinvestigating conventional narratives, this exhibition also considers absences in the NGV Collection itself by excavating queer history where it has been omitted or eclipsed through oversight or intent.
QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection includes approximately 400 artworks from antiquity to the present day, making the exhibition the most historically expansive thematic presentation of its kind ever presented by an Australian art institution.”
