Liz Bigelow's Blog Post 1

The Perpetuation of Queer Theory

             Above you will see two pictures of some performance art I stumbled upon at the Capitol Square in September. The Farmers’ Market was happening at the time, so there were many people, including myself, who had stopped to observe and take a picture.  My first emotion upon seeing this scene was confusion. It was immediately apparent these people were partaking in some sort of performance art or protesting. They appeared to be wearing baggy clothes, covered in various types of drapery, such as newspaper, paper towels, drop cloths and even aluminum foil. They each carried a number of long wooden poles, trudging as if through snow and occasionally dropping the poles. They would then bend down to pick them up, sometimes stepping on them in the process. If they fell to the ground, they would carefully pick themselves up again. I sat on one of the ledges nearby and studied one person closely. Their faces were painted almost white, immediately reminding me of the type of makeup used by geishas. The thing that most surprised me was that they all had their eyes closed; however, they were incredibly aware of their surroundings. At one point, one performer opened their eyes and looked straight at me.

            In light of our recent discussions on sex and gender, I have become very interested in notions of sexuality and society’s expectations. In class, we often speak of the masculine and feminine gender role and queer theory as considered by Pre-Raphaelites, the traditional Victorian notions and its process of transformation as the Brotherhood expanded into the second and third generations. I found several connections between a duel of the genders and the blurred lines of separation when looking at these modern-day artists. Their faces were painted over with white, a familiar feminine trademark, or at least effeminizing an otherwise masculine counterpart; yet the depiction of their body shape contradicts this idea. Their attire falls around the body in baggy wisps, and there is no hint to the body underneath. This causes a few problems for those trying to ascertain the sex of these performers. Who is male and who is female?

            During the Victorian era, these new, androgynous beings given life by the Pre-Raphaelites confused and upset their viewers. Society could not fully understand these figures as they did not align with the expected societal notions of gender, and as a result, they often did not find these works appealing. I think the same parallel can be made with my fellow viewers of these performing artists. Despite the plethora of new, “modern” art, including performance art, this display at the Capitol obviously baffled everyone involved. No one seemed to understand what these performers were doing or why they were doing it. This doesn’t necessarily mean viewers were repelled by this performance, but it became something of a mystery. The signals that we would normally look to in order to understand the gender of the subject clash with one another and only serve to add to our confusion. This just shows that regardless of culture and time, as artistic inventions develop, viewers will have to constantly change their ideas of “art” and what to expect. 

Images: Author's own