Victoria Cantons and Xu Yang on LGBTQ+ Advocacy, Rococo Drag, and Tate Commission

Artists Victoria Cantons (b. 1969, London) and Xu Yang (b. 1996, Zibo, China) discuss their practices in an interview with Elisabetta Roncati for Artribune. Both reside in the UK and use art to support LGBTQ+ civil rights. They recently participated in the group show "The Object Stares Back" curated by Mattia Pozzoni at Tube Culture Hall in Milan, which centered on the female body as protagonist. Cantons, a graduate of Wimbledon College of Arts and Slade School of Fine Art, has exhibited in London, Singapore, and Los Angeles, and was named by the Financial Times as "an artist to invest in." Yang, a graduate of Wimbledon College of Arts and Royal College of Art, won the Barbican Arts Group Trust ArtWorks Open in 2019, was selected for the Contemporary Young Artist Prize in 2020, and received a commission from Tate Collective for LGBT+ History Month 2023. For the commission, Yang created a self-portrait referencing Angelica Kauffman's "Portrait of a Lady" from the Tate collection, using purple to symbolize bisexuality and trans pride. Cantons describes her style as "idiosyncratic," blending abstraction and figuration, and incorporates text from poets like Catullus, Cavafy, and Shakespeare. Yang draws inspiration from Rococo aesthetics and drag to explore gender roles, citing historical painters Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Angelica Kauffman, and Artemisia Gentileschi. Both artists emphasize themes of identity, memory, and the transient nature of existence.