Phaidon's 'Art & Queer Culture' publication examines queer visual art theory from 19th to 21st centuries

Phaidon's publication 'Art & Queer Culture' claims to be the first book focused on queer visual art criticism and theory. Edited by Richard Meyer, the volume spans work from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, using 'queer' as an umbrella term for various sexualities and gender identities outside mainstream norms. Meyer acknowledges Western bias in his introductory essay while noting the term's problematic application to contemporary art specifically addressing gay identity. The book highlights radical works by artists like Judie Bamber, Doug Ischar, Nahum B. Zenil, and Elmgreen & Dragset that foreground gay sex and desire without apology. Later texts from 2000 onward attempt to historicize gay radicalism or address persecuted present-day minorities like the trans community. The publication's mainstream release prompts questions about whether it represents arrived postheterocentrism, contrasted by other recent books that omit nonhetero perspectives. James M. Saslow's 1979 essay 'Closets in the Museum: Homophobia and Art History' appears in the reader, noting the Metropolitan Museum's 1975 reference to George Dyer as Francis Bacon's 'close friend'. Similar coy language appears in Jacky and Suzy Klein's 2012 children's guide describing Felix Gonzalez-Torres's 'Untitled (Perfect Lovers)' (1991). The article originally appeared in ArtReview's May 2013 issue.