[-empyre-] Queer Dangerous?

[Robert Summers]

Hi Johannes,

I would beg to differ: October has a huge part to play in the field of
art history, and though the field (and I mean contemporary and modern
art history) is diverse and divisive, October still dominates and is
dominating: look at the positions held in US art history departments,
look at who was left in and left out of discussions in the
construction of so-called "postmodern art" (history), look at their
recent (panoptic) art-historical survey and who is left out or
marginalized (feminists, queers, artists of color [ queer and
feminist]), look at the debates that ensued between Douglas crimp and
others over October's silence/s (not to mention elisions and erasures)
from AIDS activism and art to Warhol's queerness, and look at who is
and is not published by the vast legion of October's texts and journal
issues, and _most_ Octoberists (though they admit are "radical") are
_mostly_ uneasy about race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.  Also, I
meant this as a polemic, which is not to say I do not agree with my
own position, but I did blow it up and suppress the differences in art
history.

Your point about having a "gay pride festival," which is sponsored by
corporations I am sure, and which I would not count as "queer,"
although there may be "queer moments," points directly toward the
corporatization and homogenization of "gay" and "lesbian" lives, or as
Sedgwick has stated "the strategic banalization of gay and lesbian
politics as well as their resolute disavowal of relation to the
historical and continuing AIDS epidemic, as though in many areas the
movement may be past when theory was in a productive relation to
sexual activism" (Sedgwick, _Touching Feeling_, 13).

And by asking if "queer is dangerous anymore" -- i literally meant if
it can cause a disruption (however construed).  Has the university and
the State through the banalization of LGBT (and queer) studies
eliminated much of its potentiality and possibilities?  Has "Queer Eye
for the Straight Guy" and "Will and Grace" and "gay" marriage
eliminated the possibilities for re-thinking the arts of living
queerly and re-thinking kinship and relations?

By fleeting moments and movements I am referring to the arts of
cruising, protest, and fucking.  I wonder how to think early queer
theory today and think it differently.

I also brought up Miwon Kwon and John's critique of her project
because he shows 1. October is dominate and 2. ones orientation limits
ones view.  I also bring up orientation because there is a certain
phenomenology to orientation and sexual-orientation/s, as Sara Ahmed
has argued in _Queer Phenomenology_.

Indeed, I think if we are to have a discussion on "queer relational,"
then the issues of phenomenology must be dealt with.  Indeed we are
always in relation to something (or someone or both) and if we apply
"queer" to this than what do we mean?  Is there a "straight
relational"?  I wonder if we need to recast the terms of the
discussion.  I think we need to think of what we mean by "queer
relational" and what the potentialities and possibilities are for such
terms and thinkings.

As ever, Robert

Robert Summers, PhD/ABD
Lecturer, Art History and Visual Culture
LAS Dept.
Otis College of Art and Design
e: rsummers at otis.edu
w: http://ospace.otis.edu/robtsum/Welcome