Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings Respond to Leo Bersani's 'Gay Betrayals'

In a new publication from Afterall, British artist duo Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings engage with Leo Bersani's 1997 critique of queer assimilation, originally presented at a symposium at Centre Pompidou and later published as 'Gay Betrayals'. Bersani argued that queer activism had become mired in micropolitics, relinquishing the radical task of reconfiguring the horizon of the possible, and championed a disruptive vision of homosexuality that 'betrays' bourgeois heterosexual respectability through 'antimonogamous promiscuity'. Quinlan and Hastings respond with a three-act narrative using drawings, preparatory sketches, and egg tempera paintings that explore everyday (homo)sociality, depicting figures navigating power structures, inclusivity, and the blurred lines of identity and community. The publication is available via After8Books and Koenig.