‘People are still doing it, but nobody talks about it': queer collective Duckie break the chemsex taboo
'It's sort of a daytime TV chatshow, mixed with an avant garde variety show,' explains Simon Casson, co-founder and producer of the legendary queer nightlife collective Duckie. Casson is explaining the colourful concept of Rat Park, the group's latest project. 'There's going to be a big bonfire in the garden and candles outdoors in jam jars, it's all very beautiful,' he says. 'Inside, there will be discussions and performance pieces, then interviews, then another performance and more conversations – all about the terribly embarrassing subject of queer people and our sex lives.'
Rat Park will run every Saturday afternoon in February, which is LGBTQ+ history month in the UK. The collaborative events, which will be held at a 'secret location', bring together community names such as artist and archivist Ajamu X, HIV activist Marc Thompson and author Matthew Todd, alongside a selection of performers including cabaret act Rhys' Pieces and artist Zack Mennell. Each week is themed on a different body fluid. 'Blood' points the way to discussions of HIV and family, whereas 'tears' might prompt conversations about grief, rejection and masculinity. (Use your imagination for the other two weeks: piss and spunk.)
Sex and intimacy are the threads that bind Rat Park together. And although everyone is welcome, there is a particular focus on queer men over 40. This is because the event isn't just anchored around sex, but particularly chemsex – sex parties including the use of drugs such as methamphetamine (known as crystal meth or 'tina') and GHB.
Casson tells me that the event is purposely positioned in the so-called 'Tina Triangle' – the area between Oval, Vauxhall and Stockwell, where there is a high concentration of gay residents and chemsex parties. 'I'm 58, so obviously my generation grew up among a lot of homophobia. It's hard to get rid of that and sometimes it comes out in funny ways as we get older,' he says. 'And when you then introduce something like chemsex, with the power of a drug like crystal meth, it can become quite irresistible for a lot of us.'
In the 2010s, chemsex inspired a flurry of mainstream media coverage. More support services soon became available. But it feels as if the 'story' has now moved on, even though there are still three suspected chemsex-related deaths every month in London alone. 'A lot of people are still doing it, but it's a secret,' Casson says. 'It's underground. It's taboo. Nobody talks about it.' He sees Rat Park as a chance to restart the conversation.
As a sober event held in the afternoon, Rat Park has a different vibe to Duckie's usual offering, which culminates in 'dancing, drinking and disco'. The collective was founded in 1995 in the Royal Vauxhall Tavern – a London pub that has been at the centre of LGBTQ+ nightlife and activism for decades.
Like the RVT itself, Duckie's output is vibrant and varied. 'It was and is a bunch of queer misfits who were disfranchised by shit gay clubbing, who brought together artists, performers and drag queens from the club world and beyond,' says performer and writer Scottee, who started his career there. 'It's an alchemy of outsiders who make work that is motivated by the issues facing the community.'
The collective's 2002 Christmas show, C'est Vauxhall, seated guests at tables and offered them the chance to order short acts using 'Duckie dollars' from a menu. The following year, this was recreated at the Barbican, which won an Olivier award for best entertainment show – a watershed moment that brought them to venues including the Sydney Opera House. In 2022, Duckie announced the end of its weekly residence at the RVT, saying it would continue to put on events such as Rat Park on an ad-hoc basis.
'Duckie is a family,' says Neil Bartlett, whose award-winning career as a theatre director, performer and writer spans five decades. Bartlett used to test out his short performance pieces on Duckie nights and continues to collaborate with them because of the 'unrivalled' connection with the audience. 'I'm probably the only person whose CV includes opening a new piece at the National Theatre and at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in the same week,' he says. 'Some people might say: 'The last thing that he did was working with Emma Corrin in the West End. Why is he going back to Vauxhall?' Well, I never left Vauxhall.'
Rat Park is a natural fit for Bartlett, because sexual politics is a thread that runs through his work. 'The intention here is to create a warm and caring space, where we can get together as a community,' he says. 'There is a concentration of addiction issues, mental health issues and loneliness, but I think we also need to talk about how we're having a fabulous time, too. We're finding new ways to love each other, new ways to have sex with each other.' And these conversations don't have to be geared around younger people. 'Each week at Rat Park I'm going to be performing a new set of five-minute monologues,' Bartlett says. 'I'll be speaking as a proud gay pensioner.'
Scottee will be taking on the role of moderator and interviewer. He hopes to facilitate face-to-face conversations that, as the LGBTQ+ community has moved online, feel more rare. To some people, meeting in a physical space might even seem like a 'radical, old-fashioned' idea. 'The art of conversation in queer culture now often boils down to, 'Hey mate, what are you into?'' he explains. 'But this is going to go beyond that. I love a bit of chat, because I think most queens and queers are very profound. We've observed and watched the world for a long time.'
Related: Cheerio, Duckie: regulars look back at the LGBTQ+ club that broke the mould
Reading the event description, it's impossible to miss a sense of warmth and sheer randomness that feels representative of the LGBTQ+ nightlife spaces Duckie descends from. Promised attractions include 'shaved arses' and performances by Shirley Bassey (a drag act, not the real one). Attenders will even be served jacket potatoes and cake. 'At the heart Duckie is working-class hospitality culture, so this is what happens when that meets radical queer culture,' Scottee says. 'When money is tight, giving people a meal is a gesture. That used to happen so much more in queer community spaces, so here you're going to get shaved arses and jacket potatoes.'
In conversation with Bartlett, I tried to define that specific irreverence – a campiness that feels homely, familiar and very queer. 'High-quality chaos' was the wording I eventually landed on. 'Ooh, I'm going to steal that one,' he says. 'A loving afternoon of high-quality chaos. Who wouldn't want to come?'
• Rat Park takes place on 1, 8, 15 and 22 February in London
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Who gets to tell the story of Félix González-Torres?
A minimalist pile of candy in a Smithsonian gallery has sparked a firestorm over memory, censorship, and who controls the legacy of one of America's most famous queer artists. In January, Out published a blistering opinion piece accusing the Félix González-Torres Foundation of sanitizing the queer identity of the late artist whose legacy it represents. The article ignited a flurry of online debate and became the magazine's most-read story that month. A deeper investigation felt necessary. A Candy Pile Goes Viral In December, queer art scholar Ignacio Darnaude visited the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., to see "Always to Return," an exhibit of Félix González-Torres's work, now on view through July 6. Known for his hyper-minimalist conceptual installations — a string of lightbulbs hung from the ceiling, a pile of candy in the corner of a room — González-Torres died in 1996 from an AIDS-related illness. His works, which are recreated anew for each exhibition according to his detailed instructions, are now managed by the Félix González-Torres Foundation, led by his former gallerist, Andrea Rosen. When Darnaude toured the exhibit, he was disturbed. There appeared to be no reference to González-Torres's identity as a queer man, nor to his HIV-positive status. Daranude was deeply upset by one piece in particular: "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), a pile of multicolored candy meant to weigh 175 pounds — the ideal weight of González-Torres's lover, Ross Laycock, before he died of AIDS-related illness in 1991. In this installation, viewers are invited to take pieces of candy. As the candy pile diminishes, it echoes, in Darnaude's view, the physical decline from AIDS wasting. Curators replenish the candy endlessly, which 'means Ross can live forever,' Darnaude says. He later wrote in his opinion piece, 'By not explaining what Portrait of Ross in L.A. truly means, the National Portrait Gallery has turned his work into an esoteric cypher.' 'They turned a deeply personal and emotionally charged work into a neutral, depoliticized sculpture," Darnaude says. The Meaning of Ross Joey Terrill, a longtime HIV activist and visual artist — whose own still-life tribute to González-Torres was recently acquired by the Smithsonian — sees something else in this piece. 'You approach 175 pounds of candy — Ross — and take something away,' he says. 'To me, that was a metaphor for how the virus was transmitted. You engage, you take something, you walk away carrying it.' Guests attend the private view for Damien Hirst and Feliz Gonzalez-Torres' 'Candy' at Blain Southern on October 15, 2013 in London, Harvey/WireImage Until recently, Terrill served as director of global advocacy at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the controversial Los Angeles-based nonprofit that provides HIV treatment and prevention around the world. (AHF has come under fire in the past for describing PrEP as 'a party drug' and for running billboard campaigns some have called stigmatizing to sex workers and people with STIs.) Terrill shares Darnaude's feelings. 'You have artists like me who lived through the holocaust of AIDS, and we know Félix's work belongs in that tradition,' he says. 'I'd argue that it's precisely because it references Ross and HIV that it's so compelling.' Dr. Jonathan Katz, the founding curator of the 2015–2016 exhibition "Art AIDS America" who is widely regarded as the leading scholar of queer art, believes the foundation has spent years pressuring institutions to omit the artist's biography — including his queerness, his relationship with Ross, and his death from AIDS — from wall texts. 'They refuse to acknowledge that the Ross of Portrait of Ross in L.A. is a real person,' Katz says. 'They treat it as a kind of metaphor, not a biography. That is a political act.' When Katz curated "Art AIDS America" — which included works by David Wojnarowicz, Chloe Dzubilo, Hugh Steers, Hunter Reynolds, Kia LaBeija, Martin Wong, and others — he says his efforts to include González-Torres's work were repeatedly blocked. 'I saw Félix as the gravitational center of the show,' he says. 'The foundation would not even return my calls.' Eventually, a colleague at a major museum (who would not speak on the record) told him the foundation had issued an ultimatum: 'If you lend this work to the AIDS show, we'll never authorize any future loans.' Katz is emphatic: 'They tried to prevent Félix being in an exhibition because it was about AIDS.' After what Katz describes as a series of 'very hostile' emails with Rosen, he threatened to release their correspondence to The New York Times if the foundation did not relent. The works were eventually included, but only after months of what he calls 'fighting.' To understand this more clearly, Out asked curators to explain how artwork is typically shown in an exhibition. In essence, artist foundations and legacy estates loan artwork to exhibits and can rescind or approve a loan at their discretion, which means they have final say over where and how artwork appears. 'These foundations have to authorize a display,' says Dr. João Florêncio, professor of gender studies at Linköping University in Sweden. 'No one can do anything about the artist if they don't sign it off.' The Claims of Erasure This criticism of the foundation is not new. In 2017, The Village Voice published an article noting that a Félix González-Torres exhibitions at the prominent David Zwirner Gallery failed to mention in 2017, Poz Magazine highlighted how galleries were 'editing HIV/AIDS from his legacy.' In 2023, Spanish art magazine A*Desk speculated on the foundation's politics in a piece titled 'Private Happiness, Public Cancellation.' The most high-profile incident came in 2022, when the Art Institute of Chicago quietly altered its label for Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), removing reference to AIDS and Laycock and instead describing the pile in terms of 'average weight.' Katz believes the foundation was behind the change. After backlash on social media, the original label was restored. Out reached out to the FGT Foundation to ask about these claims. The foundation sent a 1,600-word letter disputing Darnaude's article and defending its curatorial philosophy. It declined to be interviewed or to allow any excerpts from its email correspondence to be published. However, in February, the foundation seemed to address the controversy indirectly with a post on Instagram. In it, the organization states that González-Torres aimed to trust the viewer and 'avoid direct explanation of his works in exhibition contexts.' The post includes multiple quotes by the artist that seem to support this. (The post appeared to backfire — the comments largely express outrage. 'You have reduced this work to nothing more than free candy on the floor,' one commenter writes. Another: 'Why does this post not mention HIV/AIDS at all?') What Did Félix Want? The foundation maintains the artist intended his work to be open-ended — not about AIDS or his lover, but about the visitor's singular experience. Its website states that the organization upholds the 'artist's intentions' to let viewers 'reflect on the work in the present moment' and defends 'the artist's belief that all audiences have the ability to encounter the work on their own terms.' It maintains that all works can have shifting, multiple meanings depending on context and interpretation. Upon examination, this seems at least partly true — with caveats. Both sides of this debate — those certain that González-Torres's biographical data is essential to reading his work and those who feel it must be open-ended — base their views on statements made by the artist during his lifetime, and González-Torres contradicted himself. In various interviews before his death, he both insists on the specificity of his work — specifically its connection to Ross — and rejects authoritative interpretation, suggesting meaning is up to the viewer. Saxony's Science and Arts Minister Eva-Maria Stange of the Social Democratic Party (SPD, l-r), art patron Erika Hoffmann and general director of the Dresden's art collection Marion Ackermann stand around Felix Gonzalez-Torres' piece 'Candy spills' at the Albertium, Dresden, Germany, 2018Oliver Killig/picture alliance via Getty Images In a 1995 interview with Robert Storr for ArtPress, González-Torres speaks of the joy he felt watching a security guard hand candy to children at one of his installations, saying the work functioned even if the viewer didn't know its deeper meaning. In that interview, he says: 'When people ask, 'Who is your public?' I say honestly, without skipping a beat, 'Ross.' The public was Ross. The rest of the people just come to the work.' González-Torres even describes "Untitled" (Placebo) as a way to cope with Laycock's death: 'First and foremost it's about Ross,' he says. He further notes, 'I wanted to make artwork that could disappear, that never existed, and it was a metaphor for when Ross was dying. So it was a metaphor that I would abandon this work before this work abandoned me.' In a 1990 interview, González-Torres says about his work: 'It is all my personal history, all that and sexual preference, it's all that. I can't separate my art from my life.' However, in another interview, he says, 'I've become burnt out with trying to have some kind of personal presence in the work. Because I'm not my art.' He adds, 'I made 'Untitled' (Placebo) because I needed to make it' and 'there was no other consideration involved.' Katz feels this mixed messaging was intentional: 'At every point, he said you can get out of his work what you want. This was how he displayed work during the Helms Amendment, which made it illegal to represent AIDS or queerness.' The Helms Amendment, passed in 1987 as part of a federal appropriations bill, prohibited the use of U.S. federal funds in AIDS prevention programs to "promote or encourage, directly or indirectly, homosexual sexual activities" — also a powerful deterrent for publicly funded museums and arts institutions during the height of the AIDS crisis. According to several art scholars, González-Torres used ambiguity in his work to reach audiences in a time of extreme censorship, homophobia, and AIDS panic. 'There's a reason Félix was successful during his lifetime, unlike other gay artists at the time making art about sexuality and AIDS,' Florêncio says. 'He played with the Trojan horse thing — making art that is about something but looks like it could be about anything — in order to infiltrate the art world.' A now-famous, oft-quoted line by González-Torres, from a 1993 interview with artist Joseph Kosuth, supports this: 'At this point I do not want to be outside the structure of power…. I want to be like a virus that belongs to the institution…. So if I function as a virus, an imposter, an infiltrator, I will always replicate myself together with those institutions.' These shifting quotes raise the question: How much should curators depend on the words of the artist? Opinions vary. 'We hold Felix on too high of a pedestal if we think everything he said once, he stood by forever,' says Shawn Diamond, a lecturer on art history. 'It makes sense that some days he'd be missing Ross and say something like, 'This is all for Ross.' And other days he'd say, 'Well, the work can be taken any way.'' Censorship or Strategy? Katz believes that instead of honoring the artist's wishes, a darker, financial-based motive drives the foundation's approach — one he insists runs counter to what González-Torres wanted for his work. Katz notes that, in the high art world, labels of 'AIDS art' and even 'queer art' can limit where work can be shown and its commercial value to collectors. 'They believe that the more this work is associated with queerness or AIDS, the smaller the potential audience,' Katz says. 'That impacts money.' Terrill agrees: 'In my opinion, the foundation is concerned with maintaining high value and prestige. I don't hear anything from them about empathy or the community. I think they're motivated purely by money.' (In May of last year, the piece "Untitled" (America #3) — a single string of lights hung from the ceiling — was sold on auction at Christie's for $13.6 million). Darnaude also points to a 2021 Zoom event helmed by the FGT foundation to mark the 25th anniversary of the artist's death from an AIDS-related illness; he calls the presentation a "smoking gun" about the nonprofit's intent to downplay the role of AIDS and Laycock in González-Torres's work. After the 17:50 mark, historian Robert Hobbs cued up a slide called "Subjects Important to González-Torres" that was "put together" by Rosen. The slide attempted to show "how few works really deal with Ross" and AIDS by counting the number of pieces with Ross and "loverboys" in the titles. "There are under 50 works that deal with this," Hobbs stressed, as compared with say, the subject of politics, which numbered over 80 on the slide. In fairness, this seems to be at least one function of an artist foundation: to increase awareness, spread, and commercial value of art. It's worth noting that the Warhol Foundation isn't the same as the artist who created the work. Rather, it exists to legitimize the artwork and advance its reputation. Artist estates both protect and exploit legacies. They don't create with the purity or vision of the original artist. In one sense, it seems the Félix González-Torres Foundation is just doing its job, even if seemingly irresponsibly. However, various reports by those who have worked with the foundation in the past seem to support Katz's view — and lend credibility to his claims of antigay, AIDS-phobic erasure. For this article, multiple individuals who worked with the FGT Foundation previously — curators, gallerists, researchers — were contacted. Speaking anonymously, all described pressure to display the work in accordance with the foundation's view that it should be open to the viewer and depoliticized. However, none would speak on record; many refused to engage further when the foundation specifically was mentioned. Katz calls this a 'conspiracy of silence' in the art world. Guests at a private viewing of Damien Hirst And Felix Gonzalez-Torres's exhibition "Candy" at Blain Southern on October 15, 2013 in London, England. 'They know they're going to want to show [Félix González-Torres's work] at some point, so they don't do anything that will trouble the relationship,' he says. Additionally, Katz claims Rosen ignored some of González-Torres's dying wishes regarding his archives, including his love letters with Ross Laycock. 'Felix wanted their [love letters] read and seen,' Katz says. 'She has refused to give these materials to institutions he promised them to.' Shawn Diamond seems to corroborate this. Diamond studied the work of González-Torres for over 10 years. In his thesis about the artist, Diamond writes, 'Wall texts and gallery guides have largely abandoned context and biography, promoting a sanitized and aestheticized form of engagement.' In his research, Diamond was troubled by how the foundation appeared to restrict access to certain documents — in particular, those that are explicit about the artist's sexual relationship with Laycock. Diamond found a quote from González-Torres expressing his wish for the couple's letters to be donated to Bard College upon his passing. Even so, Diamond writes that the 'foundation retained the original copies and later donated a copy of these letters to Bard College but restricted access to them.' The Politics of Interpretation This renewed debate over González-Torres's legacy comes at a moment of rising cultural tension in the arts. In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," directing Vice President JD Vance to eliminate "improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology" from Smithsonian institutions, including museums and research centers — a development that feels darkly similar to the Helms Amendment. 'This is 2025,' Terrill says. 'We're facing a fascist takeover in the United States. The arts are under attack. Trump probably thinks the Félix González-Torres Foundation is doing the right thing, but I don't.' Florêncio agrees: 'In the current American political climate, it may be important to [the FGT Foundation] that the work is not seen as gay art.' In the exhibition "Kinderbiennale - Träume & Geschichten" in the Japanese Palais, a museum staff member arranges sweets in golden foil as part of Felix Gonzalez-Torres' work of art "Untitled", Dresden, Germany, 2018Sebastian Kahnert/picture alliance via Getty Images Given the responses from the FGT Foundation and others, the idea of whether art is fixed in time or open to evolving interpretation seems central. Among those we spoke with, opinions are divided — and heated. 'Saying 'Untitled' (Portrait of Ross) is just open-ended art is like displaying the AIDS Memorial Quilt and saying it's a modern interpretation of quilt-making,' Terrill says. Patrick Davis, a queer publisher who has studied the quilt as an act of biography and material storytelling, counters: "It is indeed a modern interpretation of quilt-making. It is a domestic art historically practiced by women to provide comfort. Men making them for their dying loved ones is subversive. The quilt panels are, essentially, the size of a grave." Florêncio says, 'The work of Félix González-Torres is no longer the same work if the idea is not present.' He adds, 'The idea behind the work is the work.' Davis similarly disagrees: 'Does Van Gogh's The Starry Night not stand on its own artistic merit? Art lives beyond the artist. Limiting González-Torres's work to its original spark of brilliance restrains it.' Patrick Moore, former director of the Andy Warhol Museum, writes in his book Beyond Shame: Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality, 'If the art of Felix González-Torres is truly meant to be open to interpretation, then I propose one such interpretation. I propose claiming Felix as a gay man who died of AIDS and relating his legacy to that powerful experience. The entirety of the 'authorized' body of work by González-Torres was created while he watched his lover die and discovered that he too was dying. The work is not about formal concerns; these are only the medium in which they were created. The work speaks of trying to grieve for another person even as you watch your own death approaching.' In The Painted Word, Tom Wolfe's acerbic 1975 critique of the modern art world, he notes, 'Modern Art has become completely literary: the paintings and other works exist only to illustrate the text.' Citing this, Davis adds,: 'González-Torres's work remains true even if meaningful text does not accompany it.' Florêncio notes that even the artist's contemporaries accused him of being 'too coy, too vague, and too beautiful' in his approach. 'Many said he was not gay enough or AIDS-y enough,' he says. 'But if the work had screamed 'gay art' from the beginning, he wouldn't have been the artist he became.' Florêncio says González-Torres 'was indirect by design, so embracing that uncertainty is part of the work.' Terrill similarly compares González-Torres to other artists of the time. 'His work was such a contrast to the art about AIDS I was familiar with, like the agitprop from ACT UP, Gran Fury, General Idea, even Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs. González-Torres's work was more subtle, less angry. It carried the undertone of grief and loss.' Andrew Hibbard, a curator who has worked with several contemporary art institutions and who worked with the FGT Foundation in 2018 to curate a González-Torres exhibit, says, 'As an artist, he was open about some things and also very cagey. You don't see many photographs of him. He didn't want that.' It's worth noting that Hibbard is the only past curator who worked with the FGT Foundation who would speak on the record; he has since left the art industry and now works for a tech company. The board members of the FGT Foundation themselves seem to have shifting views. Julie Ault, a MacArthur Fellow and editor, curated the exhibit "Afterlife: A Constellation" (2014), which rejected monolithic AIDS narratives and emphasized subjectivity in how artists like David Wojnarowicz and Martin Wong are viewed. During his lifetime, González-Torres named a work after her — 'Untitled' (Portrait of Julie Ault) — and she later published a volume on his work. Curators Elena Filipovic and Ann Goldstein helped shape some of the artist's major exhibitions, like the controversial David Zwirner show in 2017, which received accusations of AIDS erasure. These exhibitions stressed evolving, open-ended interpretations of González-Torres's work while still acknowledging its roots in illness and loss. Curator Miwon Kwon has similarly argued that González-Torres's work avoids specific meaning and instead centers on singular, unrepeatable viewer experience. Nancy Spector, who curated a major Guggenheim show while the artist was alive, once emphasized González-Torres's political and queer dimensions, but later, after the artist's death, curated exhibitions that seemed to downplay them. Musing on the board members, Hibbard says: 'They're mostly straight women. And it seems like the people pushing this critique are not straight women.' It's clear the tension isn't just about wall text or curatorial choices — it's about how queer artists are remembered and who should define that memory. Must a legacy foundation of a queer artist be run by queer people, like the Tom of Finland Foundation (an organization not without its own controversies)? At the same time, it seems necessary to let multiple interpretations of art exist. In her 1964 essay 'Against Interpretation,' Susan Sontag famously writes, 'Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.' She argues that 'interpretation in our time is more often reactionary, stifling' and that the role of criticism should be 'to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.' Hibbard muses on this. 'The question of biography is tricky,' he says. 'The issue of not alluding to HIV and AIDS in didactics makes sense to me. If you look at things González-Torres said, he was interested in AIDS not as a biological factor but as a kind of social ill. Framing it as a single issue could alienate an audience.' He adds: 'I think Félix would bristle at any effort to hammer down one meaning.' ,The Current Exhibit In the current Smithsonian exhibit — which juxtaposes González-Torres's work with selections from the National Portrait Gallery's permanent collection — the main text at the entrance makes no mention of the artist's identity as a queer or HIV-positive man. It reads, 'His work refuses to convey history in a singular authoritative voice or through linear narratives of progress. Instead, Gonzalez-Torres's practice questions and exceeds binary thinking, such as past and present, public and private, major and minor, or collective and individual.' Notably, the exhibit omits accent marks in the artist's name — though these appear elsewhere in published material. The FGT Foundation's website also omits them. However, there is a reference to the artist's Cuban heritage on wall text for "Untitled" (Portrait of Dad) (1991). "Untitled" (Leaves of Grass) (1993) notes the work's allusion to Walt Whitman but does not mention Whitman or González-Torres's sexuality, though Whitman's queerness is referenced elsewhere in the exhibit. Finally, along one wall sits "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), a pile of shimmering, multicolored candy — laid flat, like a body. Its label reads: 'Ideal weight: 175 lb.' The wall label does not explain who Ross was. "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) in present day at the Smithsonian National Portrait GalleryCourtesy Ignacio Darnaude On another spot in this room, separated from the "Untitled" work, there is a wall label that reads, "Gonzalez-Torres cared for his partner Ross Laycock, named in the candy work's title, who died from HIV/AIDS in 1991." (Darnaude, when he viewed the exhibition, doubts many visitors will make the connection to truly understand the context of the work.) Speaking on the exhibit, which presents González-Torres as one of the 20th century's greatest portraitists, Terrill says, 'When I think of Félix González-Torres, I don't think 'portraitist.' Say portraitist and I think of Grant Wood, John Singer Sargent, Romaine Brooks — not a pile of candy.' 'But,' he adds, 'if 175 pounds of candy is a portrait, who of? It's Ross. That makes the piece compelling. To say the 175 pounds is just the 'ideal weight' of the piece seems counter to the Portrait Gallery's mission. Portraits are of people, and this one is of Ross.' (It's worth noting that the artist himself defined the untitled piece as a 'portrait.') Hibbard still urges restraint. 'I'd be generous to the foundation,' he says. 'There are always a lot of interpretations. I don't think they're stifling anyone's vision. He's a hard artist to show because of the very nature of the work.' Theodore Kerr, coauthor of We Are Having This Conversation Now: The Times of AIDS Cultural Production, writes, 'As confused as I might be with the foundation's actions, I do think it is worth noting, celebrating, and continuing to organize around the fact that for so many of us, Félix González-Torres' work is about many things, including how we learned to and continue to process the ongoing HIV crisis.' Kerr goes on, 'Every time I go to a friend's house and I see that they, like me, have an Untitled"(Portrait of Ross) candy that they have saved for years, I get emotional. Those candies are memorials for our friends, the loved ones we lost, and the people we never had a chance to meet. No amount of attempted censure can take that connection away from us.' Davis, who publishes queer books and queer art through his journal Revel, says, 'This gets to a bigger debate. Can we separate art from the artist? Some want to cancel Picasso because he was a sexual predator. That criminality does not erase Cubism. Art requires nuance.' Diamond feels this debate mostly amounts to a request to see more from the Félix González-Torres Foundation — especially from those who survived a dark chapter in American history that the artist did not. The loudest voices calling for change are those who lived through the devastation of AIDS and fear its greatest voices being lost or, worse, intentionally erased. 'If anything,' Diamond says, 'I wish they would put out a specifically queer exhibit on Félix or at least agree to always acknowledge who Ross was. Because Ross represents everyone we lost.' He adds, 'They don't have to take a stance' on how the work must be read. 'But presenting more biographic information at exhibits would give viewers another lens through which to view it — not the only one, but another one. That would be enough. That would matter.'
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Brazilian comedian jailed for eight years for offensive jokes
A Brazilian comedian has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison for telling offensive jokes. Léo Lins was found guilty of inciting intolerance with a 2022 stand-up routine that made fun of black people, indigenous people, fat people, gay people, Jews, evangelicals, disabled people and those with HIV. During the performance, which was uploaded to YouTube and has more than three million views, Lins told a 4,000-strong crowd in Curitiba, in southern Brazil: 'Prejudice, to me, is a primitive thing that shouldn't exist any more. Just like indigenous people. Enough already.' Wearing a bright red shirt and yellow trousers, he warned the audience that he 'jokes about everything and everyone'. He told them: 'What show could be more inclusive? I even hired a sign language interpreter just to be able to offend the deaf-mute.' However, a judge in the São Paulo state criminal court last week found that his act amounted to 'practising' or 'inciting' racism and religious intolerance, as well as being discriminatory towards disabled people. Judge Barbara de Lima Iseppi said that 'freedom of expression is not absolute nor unlimited' and 'when there is a confrontation between the fundamental precept of liberty of expression and the principles of human dignity and judicial equality, the latter should win out'. The judge imposed a total jail sentence of eight years and three months, which Lins intends to appeal against. Lins's targets were not limited to minorities and those with disabilities. 'I'm totally against paedophilia – I'm more in favour of incest,' he told the audience, who roared with laughter throughout the set. 'If you're going to abuse a child, abuse your own. What's he going to do? Tell his dad?' The comedian remains free pending the appeal, and continues to post messages and videos to his more than 4.5 million followers on social media. On Monday, he posted a photograph of his 'prison kit', which included a packet of cigarettes and a pair of handcuffs. His legal team has described the sentence as a threat to freedom of speech and an attempt to 'criminalise comedy'. 'It seems like people have lost the ability to interpret the obvious,' said Lins. 'We're living through one of the biggest epidemics of our time: rational blindness. Judgments are now based entirely on emotion – no one listens any more, they only want to impose their own truth.' On top of the prison sentence, he has been ordered to pay a fine of 300,000 reais (£40,000) in collective moral damages. Brazil has had anti-hate speech laws on the books for years, but has only recently begun to aggressively enforce them. The Washington Post reported that Jamil Assis of the Sivis Institute, a Brazilian free speech think tank, said there had been an increase in 'modern judges' who were removing protections historically granted to satirical speech. Lins's conviction has been criticised by sections of Brazilian society, including journalists, free speech advocates, conservative politicians and other comedians. But others have defended the decision to jail him. Fábio de Sá Cesnik, a lawyer with the Brazilian law firm CQS/F, told the Folha de newspaper that there must be some limits on free speech. 'Harming the dignity of someone else is equally important,' he said. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
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2 days ago
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Meet 14 LGBTQ Rights Activists Who Have Transformed Society and Inspired Generations
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." LGBTQ activists have long been at the forefront of creating change. Over the years, these trailblazers have helped moved the needle on gay and transgender rights, whether they were on the front lines of the Stonewall Riots, writing about their identities, raising awareness about the HIV/AIDS crisis, or using their platforms to speak out against anti-LGBTQ laws. From early pioneers in the gay liberation movement to modern activists, groundbreaking advocates like Marsha P. Johnson, Edith Windsor, and Jim Obergefell dedicated their lives to the never-ending pursuit of equality. In celebration of Pride Month in June, here are some of the most prominent LGBTQ activists in the United States, both past and present.1932–2007 Considered the 'Mother of the Gay Rights Movement,' Barbara Gittings founded the country's first lesbian rights organization, the Daughters of Bilitis, in 1958 and was an editor at The Ladder, the first nationally distributed lesbian magazine. She later became involved in the American Library Association's first gay caucus and helped start the National Gay Task Force in 1973, now known as the National LGBTQ Task Force. She died at age 74 in 2007.1942–1992 Drag queen and transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson was a central figure in the 1969 Stonewall Uprising and cofounded the group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) to help homeless LGBTQ youth. She later joined the HIV/AIDS activist organization Aids Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in the 1980s. Johnson continued her activism work until her untimely death in 1992. She was 46 years old. Read Her Biography1951–2002 Sylvia Rivera was a drag queen and trans activist who played a prominent role in the gay liberation movement. She is best known for her participation in the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, but her legacy extends beyond that event. After Stonewall, Rivera joined the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance and teamed up with Marsha P. Johnson to c0-found STAR. She later joined ACT UP during the HIV/AIDS crisis and continued her activism until her death in 2002 at the age of 50. Read Her Biography1930–1978 Harvey Milk was one of the first openly gay elected officials in U.S. history. Milk became an outspoken force in politics when he first ran for San Francisco's Board of Supervisors in 1973. After losing two elections, he finally won a seat in 1977 and was inaugurated in January 1978. He served on the board for just 11 months before he was assassinated. Read His Biography1934–1992 Poet and writer Audre Lorde was a civil rights, gay liberation, and women's liberation activist who emphasized the importance of embracing intersectional identities. In 1979, she gave a powerful speech at the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, in which she highlighted the need to address racism, sexism, and classism within the LGBTQ movement. Lorde died at age 58 in 1992. Read Her Biography1943–present Trailblazing tennis star Billie Jean King, 81, was the first prominent female athlete to come out as a lesbian. After being outed in 1981, she told the world the truth about her sexual orientation and subsequently lost her endorsements. Since retiring from tennis in 1983, King has continued her work as an influential social activist, advocating for more opportunities for women and LGBTQ people in sports and beyond. She currently serves on the Elton John AIDS Foundation's board of trustees and continues to support and fund efforts to combat homophobia and reduce LGBTQ suicide rates. Read Her Biography1935–2020 Larry Kramer was a writer and outspoken activist who drew attention to the HIV/AIDS crisis that disproportionately killed gay men and trans women. He cofounded the Gay Men's Health Crisis in 1982 to support and advocate for men with AIDS and later wrote the semi-autobiographical play The Normal Heart about the rise of the AIDS epidemic. In 1987, he helped organize the radical AIDS activist group ACT UP, which successfully pushed the FDA to speed up its drug approval process for faster access to life-saving treatments for the disease. He was 84 at the time of his death in 2020. Read His Biography1912–1987 In addition to being a key player in the Civil Rights Movement, Bayard Rustin got involved in the fight for LGBTQ rights later in his life. Shortly after meeting his partner Walter Neagle, Rustin embraced the gay liberation movement in the 1980s and became an early advocate for HIV/AIDS awareness and education. In 1986, he famously testified on behalf of New York's Gay Rights Bill, asserting that 'gay people are the new barometer for social change.' He died a year later at 75 years old. Read His BiographyTK[[–2017 Best known for her landmark U.S. Supreme Court victory, Edith Windsor made history as a leading figure in the fight for marriage equality. She was the lead plaintiff in , which Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 2013. The legal victory paved the way for federal recognition of same-sex marriages. After decades of advocacy, she died in 2017 at the age of 88. Getty Images1966–present Activist Jim Obergefell, 58, will go down in history for his role in the fight for marriage equality. He was the named plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case , which granted same-sex couples the fundamental right to marry in 2015. Since the decision, Obergefell has continued his activism and even briefly pursued a political career. He regularly gives speeches about LGBTQ rights at events and colleges and is a board member of the nonprofit Family Equality. Getty Images1937–present Known for his role as Sulu in , actor George Takei is also a vocal advocate for and LGBTQ rights. Since coming out as gay in 2005, he has used his celebrity to promote LGBTQ rights and speak out against discriminatory policies. The 88-year-old has received numerous accolades for his activism, including the Human Rights Campaign's Upstander Award in 2015 and the Legal Defense Fund's National Equal Justice Award in Images1972–present Actor and filmmaker Laverne Cox made history as the first openly trans person to be appear on the cover of magazine in 2014 and subsequently became the first trans woman to win an Emmy Award the following year. Throughout her career, the 53-year-old has worked to uplift the LGBTQ community and advocate for trans rights through her documentaries and and has partnered with organizations like GLAAD and The Los Angeles LGBT Images1987–present In addition to his screen work in shows like , actor Elliot Page is a staunch advocate for LGBTQ rights. The 38-year-old Oscar nominee came out as trans and nonbinary in 2020 and has used his platform to become an outspoken critic of discriminatory policies targeting the trans community. Page also at the U.S. Capitol in Images1985–present Kelley Robinson, 40, is the president of the LGBTQ rights organization the Human Rights Campaign. She has used her position to advocate for the successful passage of the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022, mobilize LGBTQ voters in the 2024 presidential election, and push back against discriminatory legislation in states across the United States. Getty Images You Might Also Like Nicole Richie's Surprising Adoption Story The Story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Her Mother Queen Camilla's Life in Photos
