The opening chapter asks \u201cwhy talk about queer art?\u201d, which is akin to asking why queer art matters. The book answers this in subtle and varied ways. Because queerness exists as a marginal identity, it offers alternative perspectives and forms of freedom that are often shared and experienced collectively.<\/p>\n
The word \u201cqueer\u201d was first reclaimed in the late 1980s among the homosexual or gay and lesbian community, as it then defined itself. As professor of gender studies Heather Love put it<\/a>, the word evoked the \u201clong history of insult and abuse \u2013 you could hear the hurt in it\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Queer Art manages to avoid reductive framing. Although sexual content is an important aspect, queer expression goes far beyond this, and the book reflects that range.<\/p>\n It covers a wide variety of subjects presented in different styles, from figurative work to collage and abstraction. This diversity is expanded through multiple mediums including painting, photography, film and even computer games.<\/p>\n A prime example is the paintings of Julie Mehretu<\/a>, who resists labels such as \u201cqueer artist\u201d or \u201cBlack artist\u201d, instead framing her practice as a fluid commitment to complexity, multiplicity and resistance to hierarchy.<\/p>\n The book also includes a broad account of queer history<\/a>, from Greek mythology to the present day. Contemporary and historical artworks are shown side by side, allowing earlier works to be reinterpreted through a queer lens.<\/p>\n In doing so, queerness is brought into focus within art history, while historical works gain renewed relevance. Queerness as a marginal perspective encourages us to rethink past, present and future.<\/p>\n The variety of artistic practices presented offers a carefully curated recognition of different aesthetic approaches. These often contrast but also complement each other across time periods and geographies.<\/p>\n For example, Tamara de Lempicka\u2019s painting The Girls<\/a> (1930), depicting a lesbian embrace, feels both contemporary and timeless. Salman Toor\u2019s The Green Room (2019) suggests a tension between desire and prohibition.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Each chapter focuses on a theme, discussed in a two-page mini essay with an artwork and reading list \u2013 a format typical of Thames & Hudson publications. Each artist is then given a double-page spread combining image and text. These thematic groupings create space to explore queer subjectivity in more layered ways, broadening the dialogue between artwork and identity.<\/p>\n The selected artists are international and often already well known within queer art discourse. The images are bold, striking and diverse.<\/p>\n The final chapter focuses on queer futurism \u2013 an approach that uses speculative storytelling to imagine futures where queerness is centred. It notes that: \u201cQueer artists often explore the future, because the present feels insufficient, constricting or even hostile.\u201d<\/p>\n Quoting critical theoriest Jos\u00e9 Esteban Mu\u00f1oz, it states: \u201cQueerness is \u2018not yet here\u2019 \u2013 it exists not only in lived experience but also in the realm of possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n What connects queer futurism and Afrofuturism is their response to absence in dominant historical narratives. Afrofuturism draws on science fiction, history and African diasporic culture to reimagine Black identity across time. Both movements use imagination and fiction to fill gaps left by \u201cofficial\u201d histories.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Two artists working across these ideas are Zanele Muholi and Isaac Julien. Julien\u2019s film Looking for Langston (1989) blends archive, fiction and historical reconstruction to address the absence of queer lives within accounts of the Harlem Renaissance<\/a>. It reimagines Black cultural life through a speculative lens, filling gaps in the historical record.<\/p>\n Muholi\u2019s project Faces and Phases (2006\u2013present) presents over 600 portraits of Black LGBTQIA lives, described as \u201cparticipants\u201d to emphasise agency. Their work forms a living archive, extending into their self-portrait series Somnyama Ngonyama II (2015) \u2013 where their gaze confronts the viewer, reflecting experiences of racial and queer violence while refusing easy consumption of suffering.<\/p>\n The queer futurism chapter emphasises that this is \u201cnot an escapist fantasy\u201d, but one of \u201csoft revolutions, radical propositions and acts of survival\u201d. It includes new media such as gaming \u2013 for example, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley\u2019s work reconstructing Black trans histories through interactive digital archives.<\/p>\n As the book states: \u201cTrans and non-binary artists are at the forefront of queer futurity, with works that challenge fixed categories and imagine new forms of embodiment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The final statement in chapter one sums up the book\u2019s aim: queer art history has often been shaped by white men, excluding people of colour, women and trans people from its definitions. The book expands this narrative to include a much wider range of queer identities and practices.<\/p>\nInside queer art<\/h2>\n
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