Last year I wrote a number of items about art and photography shows, plays, films, etc. with a trans theme or slant. To judge by the number of views, they were popular so I plan to do more of these every month or so.
Here I aim to show that in the world of creativity, being trans can be a status worth celebrating. This month I have spotted various items in France and Italy, with contributions from further afield.
Art
Paraventi: folding screens from the 17th to the 21st centuries at the Prada Foundation in Milan (to 26 Feb) may seem an odd exhibition to include here, but it is receiving much praise. It includes a section on how the queer community has turned a screen for dressing behind into something transgressive.
From the Mousse Magazine review:
“Painting or sculpture? Art or furniture? Utilitarian or ornamental?
Decorative, functional, architectural, or theatrical? This innovative
exhibition examines the many questions and paradoxes surrounding the
unfolding history of the paravent." (Curator Nicholas Cullinan)
Queer aesthetics are at the center of another series of works that
transform this everyday object into an overtly subversive decoration
element. From an Omega workshop screen by Duncan Grant from the
Bloomsbury haven of Charleston to a rare 1929 screen made by Francis
Bacon and World of Cats (1966) by British actor, writer, and
collagist Kenneth Halliwell through to works by contemporary artists
such as Kai Althoff, Marc-Camille Chaimowicz and Francesco Vezzoli, a
culturally disruptive narrative is told.
There are many online reviews of this exhibition but the most entertaining is this one from Designboom.
Theatre
(1) In the port of Savona, NW Italy, the show Finora [Up till now] performed Anna Giusto and Giancarlo Mariottini, covers the personal search by actor and actress into male and female identities through the exaggerated femininity of drag queens and faux queens, so as to challenge the irrational threat that some people experience if they believe in rigid gender norms.
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| Officine Solimano promotional material for Finora in Savona, Jan 2024 |
(2) Vladimir Luxuria, former member of the Italian parliament and trans actress, continues to tour with Princesa, a show about the difficult life and tragic death of Brazilian trans woman Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque, based on her autobiography. There was also a 2001 film about Princesa.
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| Promotional material for the Princesa tour |
Film
Arche de Noé (Noah's Ark), starring Valérie Lemercier, is a French comedy drama about a centre for young LGBT people who have felt it necessary to leave home. They have six months to find their feet.
There doesn't seem to be an English version yet, though, but the French trailer is here:
It has mixed reviews.
I discussed such a centre last year: Like a Box of Chocolates (second item: La Bulle).
Obituaries
Vincent Honoré, exhibitions curator at MO.CO. (the unique Modern Arts 'ecosystem' in Montpellier, France) died on November 29th last. His exhibitions included the highly acclaimed 2020-21 Possédé·e·s (Possessed) on the theme of "deviance, performance, resistance", exploring
the relationship between resistant or excluded bodies and esoterisms: a means to reappropriate and perform feminist, queer or decolonial identities.
The centre's pages, including videos and photos of the exhibition and a 32-page illustrated booklet you can download, are on there site here: Possessed.
Especially relevant were: M. Mahdi Hamad Hassanzada from Afghanistan's pictures of Divs, supernatural hermaphroditic creatures from Persian mythology; Pierre Molinier, a surrealist French artist (died 1976) who explored drag and fetish culture in his photography; Antonio Obà from Brazil who explores Afro-Brazilian animist religions, especially the Pomba-gira deity who represents beauty and desire and is seen as protective of the LGBT community; and Apolinia Sokol's fabulous transgender upgrade of Botticelli's Primavera that is the second image in the rolling photos on MO.CO.'s exhibition page (link above).
Incidentally, Montpellier is a pleasant and interesting historic city, worth visiting anyway. I was there a year ago: French holiday
Wishing you a good transition to February, with its lengthening days, Valentine's Day, Carnival and leap day.
Sue x
Thank you for those, Sue. They're a selection of items I'd not see otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThat's the idea. Most of the blogs we see are from the UK and US but there's more going on in the trans world than in those two places. Sue x
DeleteIndeed. I wonder if it's a language barrier thing? I say that as someone who could just about order food in France, but nothing more.
DeleteI do wonder how other cultures experience being trans*, and hearing from people first hand seems a good way.