Round Table: Queer Lifestyles, Politics and Curating Now

Abstract

These three thought-provoking pieces were originally conceived of as a tripartite round table discussion at the end of our conference ‘Exploring Queer Cultures and Lifestyles in the Creative Arts in Britain c.1885–1967’ held at the LondonCollege of Fashion inMay2016.DeliveredbyMichaelHatt, Elizabeth Wilson andClare Barlow, they formed semi-scripted responses to the searching papers, lively questions and animated discussions that occurred on that day. Our aim in including them within this special issue of Visual Culture in Britain as three short texts is to retain the freshness and flavour of the plenary as a provocation and reflection at the culmination of a lively conference. We see, in the pages that follow, the perspectives of differentgeneration authors from varied disciplinary backgrounds who had spent the day engaging with the contemporary problematic of framing the insights of gay and lesbian studies and queer theory in relation to the examination of the historical past approached from the contemporarymoment. ForHatt, it is the shifting and complex realignment of lived experience and biographywith contemporary gay lifestyle and the ill-fitting intersection of earlier fluid historical identities with today’s non-normative sexualities that is challenging. For Wilson, it is the bold claims made about the transgressive nature of queer studies that is open to reviewas the contradictions of the assimilation of earlier Lesbian and Gay radical politics becomes increasingly commonplace and itsmainstreamappropriationmore troublesome.And for curatorBarlow, it is the potentialities that experimental exhibition-making has for publicly engagingwider audienceswith queer artists (LGBTQ+or not), their artworks and its queer complexities through their encounters in the gallery spaces of thenationalmuseum that is exciting at the timeof Tate Britain’s ‘QueerBritish Art, 1861–1967’ show. We thank them for allowing us to publish them here.