Skip to content
1981
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Art & the Public Sphere
  4. Volume 12, Issue 2
  5. Article
Queer(ing) Art, Curation and Collaboration
  • ISSN: 2042-793X
  • E-ISSN: 2042-7948

Abstract

This article examines entanglements between past, present and futures of queerness visible in monuments as materialized forms of memory. We distinguish between queer monuments (i.e. positioning, and potentially imposing reified representations of queer history or memory) and the queering of monuments (i.e. challenging heteronormative or otherwise reductionist historical discourses, practices or memorial cultures of remembrance). By reflecting on oscillations between institutionalization, recognition, commodification and counter-memorial practice, we suggest the queering of monuments as an unfinished conceptual trope that embraces the non-conclusiveness of the past and future. Queering monuments nuances underlying tensions about the meaning and aesthetics of queer-themed heritage sites, objects and subjects, which emerge from multi-stakeholder arrangements of monument-making. Our approach chimes with critical heritage and monument studies that emphasize performative, affective-emotional and ghostly dimensions of heritage. By pulling hauntology into queer memorial discourse, we discuss queerness as an embodied and epistemological appearance that can challenge presentist, monolithic and thus potentially exclusive understandings of both heritage and monuments. Through queer temporality we situate our reflections in the public monument in Vienna, Austria (2023). We unpack the conflictual constellations of past and present voices, materialities and memories around the sculpture, using the rainbow motif (which became a symbol for queer people in the 1970s) to remember the persecution of queers during the Nazi Era. The monument begs the question how Vienna seeks to brand itself as a ‘rainbow city’, while continuously displacing queer practices from urban public space. Queering, in sum, embraces ghosts of past and present complex histories, trauma and joy instead of squeezing them into smooth or unambiguous narratives. Queering monuments thus outline a conflict-attuned approach to queer(ing) art, curation and collaboration.

© 2023 Intellect Ltd
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/aps_00095_1
2024-11-19
2024-12-14
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Anon. (2008), ‘Mahnmal für homosexuelle NS-Opfer scheitert am rosa Wasser’, Der Standard, 19 March, https://www.derstandard.at/consent/tcf/story/3258199/mahnmal-fuer-homosexuelle-ns-opfer-scheitert-am-rosa-wasser. Accessed 29 January 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Bazalka, Christine (2021), ‘Feiernde Jugendliche: Scharfe Reaktionen auf das Platzverbot am Karlsplatz’, 7 June, https://www.meinbezirk.at/wien/c-politik/scharfe-reaktionen-auf-das-platzverbot-am-karlsplatz_a4690904. Accessed 10 January 2024.
  3. Blackman, Lisa (2019), Haunted Data: Affect, Transmedia, Weird Science, London: Bloomsbury Academic.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Brunner, Andreas (2024), interview with M. Schwarz, Vienna, 12 January.
  5. Brunner, Andreas and Sulzenbacher, Hannes (eds) (2023), Homosexualität und Nationalsozialismus in Wien, Wien and Berlin: Mandelbaum.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Butler, Judith (1990), Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Butler, Judith (2004), Undoing Gender, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Conner, P. Randy, Sparks, David and Sparks, Mariya (1997), Cassell’s Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol, and Spirit: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Love, London: Continuum.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Courtheyn, Chris (2016), ‘Memory is the strength of our resistance: An “other politics” through embodied and material commemoration in the San José Peace Community, Colombia’, Social & Cultural Geography, 17:7, pp. 933–58, https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2016.1139172.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Derrida, Jacques (1994), Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Duberman, Martin (2018), Has the Gay Movement Failed?, Oakland, CA: The University of California Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Dunn, Thomas R. (2017), ‘Whence the lesbian in queer monumentality? Intersections of gender and sexuality in public memory’, Southern Communication Journal, 82:4, pp. 203–15.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Edelman, Lee (2004), No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Engel, Antke (2011), ‘Queer temporalities and the chronopolitics of transtemporal drag’, e-flux, 28, https://www.e-flux.com/journal/28/68031/queer-temporalities-and-the-chronopolitics-of-transtemporal-drag/. Accessed 29 January 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Forsyth, Scott Brodie (2023), ‘On the ghosts of western philosophy’, Illumination, 12 August, https://medium.com/illumination/jacques-derridas-specter-s-of-marx-and-the-concept-of-hauntology-reflections-on-deconstruction-2eb687322a69. Accessed 29 January 2023.
  16. Gibson-Graham, J. K. (1999), ‘Queer(y)ing capitalism in and out of the classroom’, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 23:1, pp. 80–85, https://doi.org/10.1080/03098269985623.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Gordon, Avery (2011), Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Halberstam, Jack (2005), In a Queer Time and Place Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives, New York: NYU Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Halberstam, Jack (2011), The Queer Art of Failure, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Hennessy, Rosemary (1994), ‘Queer visibility in commodity culture’, Cultural Critique, 29, Winter, pp. 31–76, https://doi.org/10.2307/1354421.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. ILGA (2023), ‘Annual review of the human rights situation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people’, https://www.ilga-europe.org/blog/anti-lgbti-violence-europe-central-asia-numbers/. Accessed 29 January 2023.
  22. Immonen, Visa (2022), ‘What is queer heritage? Queercache and the epistemology of the closet’, Lambda Nordica, 27:2, pp. 41–68, https://doi.org/10.34041/ln.v27.788.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Kisić, Visna (2017), ‘Governing heritage dissonance promises and realities of selected cultural policies’, European Cultural Foundation, https://www.europanostra.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Governing_Heritage_Dissonance.pdf. Accessed 29 January 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. KÖR (Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Wien) (2022), ‘Zweistufiger Wettbewerb “Denkmal für Männer und Frauen, die Opfer der Homosexuellen-Verfolgung in der NS-Zeit wurden”’, https://www.koer.or.at/projekte/offener-wettbewerb-zum-denkmal-fuer-maenner-und-frauen-die-opfer-der-homosexuellen-verfolgung-in-der-ns-zeit-wurden/. Accessed 29 January 2023.
  25. Landau-Donnelly, Friederike, Pohl, Lukas and Roskamm, Nikolai (2021), [Un]Grounding Post-Foundational Geographies, Bielefeld: Transcript.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Landau-Donnelly, Friederike (2023), ‘Ghostly murals’, Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 41:6, pp. 1147–65, https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654423117212.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Lorenz, Renate (ed.) (2014), Not Now! Now! Chronopolitics, Art & Research, London: Sternberg Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Millett-Gallant, Ann (2013), ‘Sculpting body ideals: Alison Lapper pregnant and the public display of disability’, in L. J. Davis (ed.), The Disability Studies Reader, London: Routledge, pp. 402–14.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Moolhuijsen, Nicole (2020), ‘Queer identities and heritage: Current developments and hopes for the future’, Roots-Routes, Special Issue: ‘+ Fluid Heritage’, 10:34, pp. 1–17.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Muñoz, José Esteban (2009), Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, New York: New York University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Orangias, Joseph, Simms, Jeannie and French, Sloane (2018), ‘The cultural functions and social potential of queer monuments: A preliminary inventory and analysis’, Journal of Homosexuality, 65:6, pp. 705–26.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Queer.de (2018), ‘Wien: Mahnmal vorerst gescheitert’, 11 March, https://www.queer.de/detail.php?article_id=8416. Accessed 29 January 2023.
  33. Queer.de (2021), ‘Britischer Künstler zieht Entwurf für Homo-Mahnmal zurück’, 22 July, https://www.queer.de/detail.php?article_id=39512. Accessed 29 January 2023.
  34. QWien (2014), ‘Wien gedenkt vergessener Opfer’, 18 November, https://www.qwien.at/en/2014/11/18/wien-gedenkt-vergessener-opfer/. Accessed 29 January 2023.
  35. Sedwick, Eve Kosofsky (2002), Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Stadt Darmstadt (2022), ‘Gedenkstätten: Mahnmal für die Opfer des § 175 StGB auf der Theaterwiese’, https://www.darmstadt.de/standort/stadtportraet/gedenkstaetten#:~:text=und%20begehbare%20Form.-,Mahnmal%20f%C3%BCr%20die%20Opfer%20des%20%C2%A7%20175%20StGB%20auf%20der,Strafgesetzbuchs%20entrechtet%20und%20verfolgt%20wurden. Accessed 29 January 2023.
  37. Stadt Wien (2014), ‘Gedenken neu gedacht’, 28 November, https://www.wien.gv.at/menschen/queer/pdf/fachkonferenz-2014-gedenken-neu-gedacht.pdf. Accessed 10 January 2024.
  38. Stadt Wien (2020), ‘Lesbisch, schwul, bi, trans, inter, queer (LGBTIQ): Wien ist Regenbogenhauptstadt’, https://www.wien.gv.at/regierungsabkommen2020/stadt-der-kultur-und-des-respektvollen-miteinanders/lesbisch-schwul-bi-trans-inter-queer-lgbtiq-wien-ist-regenbogenhauptstadt/#:~:text=Wien%20hat%20sich%20in%20den,und%20Verwaltung%20aktiv%20forciert%20werden. Accessed 10 January 2024.
  39. Stadt Wien (2023), ‘ARCUS (Schatten eines Regenbogens) erinnert ab heute an die Verfolgung Homosexueller im NS-Regime’, 5 June, https://presse.wien.gv.at/presse/2023/06/05/arcus-schatten-eines-regenbogens-erinnert-ab-heute-an-die-verfolgung-homosexueller-im-ns-regime. Accessed 10 January 2024.
  40. Steorn, Patrik (2012), ‘Curating queer heritage: Queer knowledge and museum practice’, Curator: The Museum Journal, 55:3, pp. 355–65, https://doi.org/2151-6952.2012.00159.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Sterling, Colin (2022), ‘Becoming hauntologists: A new model for critical-creative heritage practice’, Heritage & Society, 14:1, pp. 67–86, https://doi.org/10.1080/2159032X.2021.2016049.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Sternfeld, Nora (2018), ‘Gegendenkmal und Para-Monument: Politik und Erinnerung im öffentlichen Raum’ (‘Counter-monument and para-monument: Politics and remembrance in public space’), in E. Logar (ed.), Ort Der Unruhe/Place of Unrest, Klagenfurt/Celovec: Drava Publishers.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Sullivan, Nikki and Middleton, Craig (2020), Queering the Museum, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Taig, Martina (2024), online interview with F. Landau-Donnelly and M. Schwarz, 17 January.
  45. Tunbridge, John E. and Ashworth, Gregory J. (1996), Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict, New York: John Wiley & Sons.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Widrich, Mechtild (2014), Performative Monuments: The Rematerialisation of Public Art, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Young, James E. (1992), ‘The counter-monument: Memory against itself in Germany today’, Critical Inquiry, 18:2, pp. 267–96.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Zebracki, Martin and Leitner, Ryan (2021), ‘Queer monuments: Visibility, (counter)actions, legacy’, Journal of Homosexuality, 69:8, pp. 1342–71.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Zebracki, Martin, Janssens, Freek and Vanderbeck, Robert M. (2023), ‘Gay monuments in queer times: Amsterdam’s Homomonument and the politics of inclusive social practice’, Sexualities, 26:3, pp. 298–330, https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607211028517.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Cartiere, Cameron and Zebracki, Martin (2016), The Everyday Practice of Public Art, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Haldrup, Michael and Bærenholdt, Jørgen Ole (2015), ‘Heritage as performance’, in E. Waterton and S. Watson (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Heritage Research, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 52–68.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Landau-Donnelly, Friederike, Schad-Spindler, Anke, Fridrik, Stefanie and Marchart, Oliver (2023), ‘Conflictual cultural policy’, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 30:3, pp. 341–56, https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2023.2203723.
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Munteán, Laszlo, Plate, Liedeke and Smelik, Anneke (2019), Materializing Memory in Art and Popular Culture, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  54. Queer.de (2020), ‘Die Schattenseite des Regenbogens’, https://www.queer.de/bild-des-tages.php?einzel=3093. Accessed 29 January 2023.
  55. Sharp, Joanne, Pollock, Venda and Paddison, Ronan (2005), ‘Just art for a just city: Public art and social inclusion in urban regeneration’, Urban Studies, 42:5–6, pp. 1001–23, https://doi.org/10.1080/00420980500106963.
     [Google Scholar]
  56. Smith, Laurajane (2006), Emotional Heritage: Visitor Engagement at Museums and Heritage Sites, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  57. Tormos-Aponte, Fernando (2017), ‘Intersectional solidarity’, Politics, Groups, and Identities, 5:4, pp. 707–20, https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2017.1385494.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/aps_00095_1
Loading
The queering of monuments: Hauntological remembrance in Vienna
Art & the Public Sphere 12, 173 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1386/aps_00095_1
/content/journals/10.1386/aps_00095_1
/content/journals/10.1386/aps_00095_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): composite sketch; hauntology; invisibility; memorial; memory politics; public art; queer; rainbow

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error