Rather, we hope this exhibition will be part of a bigger conversation that will encourage more material, more stories and more lives to be discovered. This is not a definitive selection of queer British artworks.
Queer experience is diverse and there are some perspectives for which we have found little surviving material. Much material has been lost or destroyed – this is a history punctuated by bonfires and dustbins. We have used the broader term ‘queer’ to avoid imposing more specific identity labels. Often their approaches do not fall easily into these categories. Terms such as ‘lesbian’, ‘gay’, ‘bisexual’ and ‘trans’ were not widely recognised for much of this period and would have been unknown to many of the artists and audiences whose perspectives we explore. Legal persecution affected many, yet for some, this was a time of liberation – of people finding themselves, identifying each other and building communities. The exhibition begins in 1861 when the death penalty for sodomy was abolished and ends in 1967 with the partial decriminalisation of sex between men. Queer British Art 1861–1967 explores connections between art and a wide range of sexualities and gender identities in a period of dynamic change.
