Absolutely Queer, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 17 February 2023–4 February 2024

The Powerhouse exhibition Absolutely Queer is, as its website explains, ‘an exhibition celebrating contemporary queer creativity … and explores Sydney’s leading queer creatives who are reshaping attitudes towards their community through their work, creative processes, and personal stories’.¹ It was set up to coincide with Sydney WorldPride 2023 – opening on 17 February 2023.

The title is instructive. Of the so-called ‘spaghetti word’ – LGBTQIA+ – unlike Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, or Asexual, Queer is the only word that does not designate a sexuality or gender diversity. Indeed, Queer in its modern manifestation might be seen to specify anything not ‘heteronormative’, and Absolutely Queer is certainly not about life as it would be lived by the average suburban Australian – yet.

The exhibition also isn’t about LGBTQIA+ life in general; rather it is about a taste for flamboyance in creativity, emphasising exuberance, colour and brightness, and a certain outré stylishness. Showcasing the work of Sydney’s leading LGBTQIA+ artists, designers, makers and performers, there are costumes, jewellery, photos, videos, posters, blow-up pillars, amazing headgear, lights and exhortations; it is a veritable visual onslaught, and one that entices the visitor to move on from one section to the next (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Installation view, ‘Mary Don’t Ask’, made, designed and worn by Peter Tully, 1984. Photo by Judith Hickson.

For those familiar with Sydney’s Annual Mardi Gras Parade, some of the exhibits might well be known, as with costumes by Renè Rivas and Brenton Heath-Kerr, one of the artistic pioneers of the Mardi Gras. But there are other segments of the exhibition that would be new to most visitors, such as Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay mixed media artist Dennis Golding, whose work critiques social, political and cultural representations of race and identity; drag king performer Sexy Galexy; The Beautiful and Useful Studio of Maurice Goldberg and Matthew Aberline; and multi-disciplinary artist Justin Shoulder, who uses his body and craft to forge connections between queer, migrant, spiritual and intercultural experiences. Also featured are the works of video-game developers, animators and illustrators, gender and body diverse fashion house designers, and pop art jewellery makers.

We hear voices from different perspectives. Ron Muncaster, known for his outrageous costume designs – and for ‘the use of sequins’ – commented that,

In the early days it was very risqué to go out on the street dressed up in outrageous costumes, and Mardi Gras gave us the opportunity to do that … Having a crowd of people all dressed up gave us the courage, whereas we wouldn’t have done it on our own.²

Museums are, by their very nature, repositories of histories, and the choices of what exhibition to mount, how to conceptualise it, and what objects to include and their placement, are decisions not devoid of political considerations. The issue of Trans identity has emerged recently as a political weapon in the culture wars – as we saw in the seat of Warringah in the 2022 Federal election – and just inside the entrance there is a video of social justice activist and cartoonist Norrie May-Welby. May-Welby was the first person in Australia to be allowed by the High Court to have their sex registered as ‘non-specific’. As Norrie tells us in one scene, ‘I chose my new surname because I may well be a girl or I may well be a boy’. Norrie is a spokesperson for Transgender issues – ‘I’ve sort of got a whole generation that I look after’.

One segment of the exhibition, on Australian Fashion Week, showed models of one gender ‘cross-dressing’ with panache. This occurring at such a signature Australian event plays an educational role, helping to transform ideas of what is ‘normal’ in our society today.

Absolutely Queer does give a nod to one aspect of society’s queer history. In the Edwardian era, when someone was trying to politely refer to a person they knew who might be homosexual, such euphemisms as ‘theatrical’ or ‘artistic’ or ‘musical’ would be used, as descriptors of those who were different. So ‘theatrical’ – not only as metaphor – is on display here.

Queerness has rarely been represented in museums around Australia, although Powerhouse has been leading the field, with Absolutely Mardi Gras in 1996, and Forty Years of Fabulousness in 2018. And times are clearly changing – as with the NGV’s Queer: Stories from the NGV Collection, in 2022, or the new Qtopia Sydney – a Centre for Queer Culture and History, with its mix of various permanent and temporary exhibitions. So, exhibitions like Absolutely Queer play an important role in educating the wider world about difference, by being both enlightening and entertaining, helping to shape community attitudes and opinions.

If there is a criticism to be made, it is where the exhibition is located. Situated as it is in the cavernous entry hall, it is not highly immersive, and some aspects of it could also be confronting for some visitors, not all of whom might be cool city sophisticates, at ease with the edgy varieties of the diversity of our multicultural society.

For those who are ‘different’ and marginalised in any society, museums may need to consider how to enfold this difference in future exhibitions, not just as a standalone topic. For any minority, the question is ‘Do we want to maintain and celebrate our difference, or will it one day – like left-handedness in the not-so-distant past – become just another unremarkable aspect of humanity?’ How do we ensure that we do not lose a distinctive thread in our society’s rich cultural history?

Having spent the first half of my life with my sexual and emotional feelings illegal, I sometimes stand in wonderment at what the queer world can offer today. And while such an exhibition might seem to be far from the halls of academe, it is a perfect example of how far the world has changed, and is changing, even in academe – and for the better.

Absolutely Queer is – in a phrase made popular by the iconic British comic duo ‘Eddie Monsoon’ and her best friend ‘Patsy Stone’ – ‘Absolutely Fabulous!’

Notes

1 https://powerhouse.com.au/program/absolutely-queer (accessed 14 May 2024).

2 Ron Muncaster quote from https://powerhouse.com.au/program/absolutely-queer