Brighton and Sussex Sexualities Network

BSSN Research Seminar on 'Sex in the Museum'

14 October 2011 4.30 - 6.30 pm at the University of Brighton Grand Parade, room M2 

On Friday 14th October 2011 we are hosting a very exciting event featuring talks by Pawel Leszkowicz (Sussex) and Matt Smith (Brighton) who both work in the field of sexuality, art and curatorship and you are warmly invited to join us at the University of Brighton Grand Parade (4. 30PM) for papers and discussion, followed by a wine reception. 

If you have any queries, feel free to contact us on: bssn@brighton.ac.uk

All welcome!

Download further information about this seminar (pdf)

Paweł Leszkowicz (Sussex): Queering the National Museum of Poland

The presentation will focus on the curatorial strategy behind the exhibition Ars Homo Erotica at the National Museum in Warsaw (2010). The project combined the discovery of homoerotic works from the entire historical collection of the Museum (from antiquity and one of the oldest representations of Sappho) with the exploration of the contemporary queer art of Central and Eastern Europe.
I will emphasise how the art from the collection of the National Museum as well as the works of specially invited contemporary artists surveyed both cultural history and contemporary sexual politics in the region.

Matt Smith (Brighton): Queering the Museum

Most museums have been slow to represent the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered communities. Even when there is willingness on the part of museum staff, few objects can relate to all sections of the diverse queer community, and museums rely on material culture – objects, things – to tell stories.
For this exhibition, I decided to take a more lateral – and fragmented – approach to the subject matter. If an exhibition of ‘queer’ objects wasn’t possible, could we ‘queer’ the whole museum instead?Interventions using the existing collections and galleries enabled me to draw out queer stories and themes, exploring subjects that a queer viewer might overlay onto objects the museum already held. I used craft to tell these stories as it has strong gendered links – woodwork for boys and sewing for girls – as well as domestic connections. Its homely connotations make it an idea vehicle for conveying potentially unsettling messages. The museum allowed me access to its stores to search for objects which could be brought out to tell other queer stories. It brought up exciting connections: pairing a stuffed otter with ceramic bears to explore slang and stereotypes; linking polychrome figures from a fairground organ with coded language used by itinerant travellers and the gay community. Other connections were quieter and more difficult. Using drug jars to explore the impact of HIV, and ceramic sphinxes to consider homophobia in Uganda. No exhibition could adequately, and equally, convey the subtleties and complexities that are inherent in such a large and diverse group as the queer ‘community’. Rather, I hope this exhibition reminds people that there is more than one story to tell about any object.

About the speakers: 

Dr Paweł Leszkowicz is a Polish art and cultural historian, curator and lecturer specializing in contemporary art/visual culture and sexuality/LGBTQ studies. From January 2011 till January 2013 he is a Marie Curie Intra-European Research Fellow at the School of English’s Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence and Cultural Change at the University of Sussex. He is currently working on a project entitled ‘A Comparative Study of LGBTQ Rights and Art in the UK and Poland within the Context of the EU Idea of Sexual Diversity’. He has written three books: Helen Chadwick. The Iconography of Subjectivity (Krakow 2001), Love and Democracy: Reflections on the Homosexual Question in Poland (with his partner Tomek Kitlinski) (Kraków 2005), and Art Pride. Gay Art from Poland (Warsaw 2010). He has curated exhibitions and published several catalogues: Love and Democracy (Poznan 2005, Gdansk 2006), GK Collection – Art from Grażyna Kulczyk Collection (Poznan 2007), The Empire of the Senses (Poznan 2007), Vogue (Gdansk 2009), Urban Legend (Poznan 2009), Ars Homo Erotica at Warsaw’s National Museum (2010), and Love is Love. Art as LGBTQ Activism from Britain to Belarus (Lublin 2011).

Matt Smith is an Artist and Curator. He is currently undertaking an AHRC funded PhD in Queer Craft at the University of Brighton. He co-directs the Unravelled Group, an Arts Council funded organisation which commissions artists to make works in response to historic properties in order to draw out their multiple histories. Matt is currently working on a solo show in conjunction with the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery at Leeds University.