Reflection Beam takes Jill Casid’s critical review of Fabio Cleto’s anthology Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject (published in the 63rd volume of ART JOURNAL, in 2004) as inspiration for materially articulating a frustration with varied visibilities of queerness, where what reads as gay, queer, and camp is most often a certain kind of gay masculinity, to the exclusion of other equally potent gender play. The piece, constructed from a mirrored I-beam mounted by an ever-growing accumulation of Campanthologies, wrestles with the politics of spectacle, and the tactic of appropriating the visibility of another in order not to remain invisible. Complementing this disidentifying gesture is the fact of the mirror – more than simply some kind of post-disco flamboyance – this beam also makes the viewers visible, and invites them into the piece as foundational figures.
| acrylic mirror, plywood, 8 copies of Camp edited by Fabio Cleto 1’ w x 8” d x 4’ h 2009 – 2016 |