The Queer Gaze

‘Queer’ means something that is not ‘straight’ – something that deviates from traditional structures and norms. In essence, it refers to breaking with what we regard as ‘normal’.

In colloquial language, ‘queer’ can be used to describe all forms of gender expressions, identities and sexualities that do not follow the norm.

What queer traces can we find in art?

Art history has established dominant, ‘correct’ narratives about how art should be viewed and understood. The queer gaze challenges them. Looking for narratives that have been concealed or supressed in traditional museum exhibitions can open for new interpretations and different contexts in which motifs can be understood.

The almost 160 works from Classical antiquity to the present day address topics ranging from camp aesthetics, cruising culture and Greek myths to 19th century spinster culture. The narratives are about expectations of femininity and masculinity, about gender identities and about same-sex love and desire.

Part of our history

In different ways, the selected works show how queer experiences, over which a veil has often been drawn, are an important part of our history.

These works contain narratives or references that challenge the established boundaries for what is regarded as normal or natural. Gender and sexual diversity pop up in the most unexpected places in art history. Highlighting these stories can help us to achieve a new understanding of ourselves and our time.

"The Queer Gaze" aims to create meetings between past and present, between concrete narratives and creative utopias, and to challenge the boundaries within which art can be interpreted.

What does it mean to make queer art?

In the second instalment of "The Queer Gaze", we give space to invited contemporary artists who use their queer gaze in their art.

Each artist has their own unique starting point, and the artistic expressions are just as varied. Nevertheless, the works are characterized by a common desire to find one’s place in the world and carve out space for self-expression.

Artists who work outside of the heteronormative framework have often created art that envisions a more liberated future – a future where everyone can be who they want to be. Using their art as a tool, queer artists have paved the way for more tolerance and openness in society.

Queer perspectives within art dissolve traditional boundaries between high and low, clean and dirty, the ugly and the beautiful. Some artists even question whether such categorizations are meaningful at all.

Speculations about identity and society, and about gender and culture, are a key theme of the exhibition, which includes works relating to documentation and disinformation, politics and the erotic, our inner nature and the struggle against the inhibiting framework of culture.

By shedding light on and challenging the mechanisms of power in society, queer art can create more room for freedom, understanding, and creative activity.

Participating artists:

Chai Saeidi, Damien Ajavon, Fin Serck-Hanssen, FRANK, Hamid Waheed, Ihra Lill Scharning, Isak Leon Gunnarson, Jannik Abel, Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty, Nina Eriksson, Synnøve Sizou G. Wetten & Vebjørn Guttormsgaard Møllberg