“Make Visible the Otherwise”: Queering the Art Library

Abstract

Using methods from library and information science in conjunction with art and art history, the author explores the challenges and possibilities associated with “queering” the art library. The author underlines the importance of providing access to materials relating to non-normative sexualities, genders, and identities and suggests that queer art and theory can intersect to critique traditional library structures. This is demonstrated through a description and analysis of a course-long collaboration in a Memphis College of Art art history class in which students produced finding aids for the library on topics relating to gender and sexuality in art. [This article is a revision of a poster presented at the ARLIS/NA + VRA joint conference held in Seattle, Washington, in March 2016.] Perhaps it is human nature to search for a reflection of ourselves in literature. … We need artistic, literary, historical and quantitative proof that we are, and always have been, “here.” But we don’t always find it.—tatiana de la tierra1