It grants us tiny displays in the corners of shops that are easily missed and don’t cause too much controversy. It pretends to support our cause and fight for our history, playing over the tannoy “To all our LGBTQ+ customers and colleagues, we love you” whilst instantly ignoring us come 1 st July. Capitalism is patronising, it is demonising – it tells you how and when it is acceptable to be. We cannot rely on brands to dictate where and when we exist, nor should we give them the authority to. We cannot rely on capitalism to create space for us. Reaching for tolerance is already reaching for failure. Brands follow the money – if it becomes profitable to serve the queer community, they will latch on and suck the life out until we’re shrivelled and dead, before moving on to drain the next profit-making opportunity. If it had, we wouldn’t be in this problem, feeling the very anxieties we feel now. It has not liberated queer people while it might have (loosely) improved tolerance, it has not fostered acceptance. Sure, public support can be positive, but capitalism will never be the solution. There is a lot to be anxious about in these current global circumstances, and it’s understandable for people to feel concerned about a loss of “overt” support from corporations.īoth liberals and leftists complain that companies are caving in to the right over their ostensible support of queers people as though they weren’t expecting this all along. Still, a recent discourse has emerged defending so-called “representation” in the marketplace against right-wing fanatics.Īs we meander through one of the darkest Pride Months in recent times, through the constant barrage of right-wing (and left-wing) attacks on trans people, the rise of far-right slogans harking back to 1980’s hate campaigns, and the scapegoating of queer people and drag queens across the world, people are understandably beginning to feel nervous. This has been well-established over many years. For the production of his art works and the working of the materials he regularly calls in the help of specialists in handicrafts that are becoming quite scarce, such as filigree work and marble imitation, or the help of technical and biological scientists who use their specialist knowledge and equipment in order to assess the feasibility of an experiment.”Ī comprehensive overview of the works in this exhibition will be presented in our online showroom.Rainbow capitalism will not save queer people.
#Meander greek person skin#
Teio Meedendorp expands in On Superfluous Things: “ One glance at Harmen Brethouwer’s collected works shows us that in his choice of materials the artist, besides using traditional materials like paint, bronze and earthenware, regularly exhibits a predilection for exclusiveness and exoticism, in his use of tortoiseshell, malachite, ray skin and mother-of-pearl, for instance. The artist uses this void to articulate a highly personalized 'canon' of art.
This setup creates a critical gap between the subject and the form in which it is presented. This takes place on two model forms specially designed for the purpose, a cone-shaped spatial object and a square wall panel. But, where the amateur is satisfied with buying into the ready-made versions of the various art movements, the artist processes his impressions himself. Just like the original 'tourists', he collects 'souvenirs' of what he encounters on the stages of his journey. The avarage person would have completed his or her Tour in several months, Brethouwer's timetable on the other hand is open ended. His project can be compared to a 'Bildungsreise', or a Grand Tour, as was customary in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the difference that his itinerary is not predetermined, nor will it lead along the beaten track of art history. Thirty years ago Harmen Brethouwer set himself on a meandering journey through the history of art and culture. Kerenyi notes that it is a confusing path, hard to follow, yet the movement of the meander is progressive.
Moving along a meander means that from the position of the present, the past, for an extended period of time, keeps in sight, what's more, with every turn the meander offers a different perspective on the past. The significance of the meander motif may well stem from the way in which the linear motion continually returns onto itself, so that at every point it almost touches where it was a moment before. As the cultural scientist Karl Kerenyi pointed out, in Greek mythology, the meander is the figure of a labyrinth in linear form. The word "meander" recalls the twisting and turning path of the river Maeander in Asia Minor.
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