Discovering gender identities in visual art after 1969
BY CHANG SUN
AUG. 18, 2019, 8:52 PM
In honor of the 50th anniversary Stonewall Movement, the author discovered art expression to contextualize the identity issue within the LGBT group. Throughout primary research-driven methodology, particularly visiting the simultaneous exhibitions in New York City, the paper outlined artworks that relevant to the LGBTQ community. It gives a brief insight into the historical significance and their unique contribution to both the art world and society.
With the uprising activities of the LGBTQ community and feminists, the boundaries of gender have blurred, and the gendered identities keep expanding. After 1969 Stonewall riots, exploring and unveiling complex identities (such as a resister, a rebellion, a perplexed, a mixed, an ailing, a commensal, an empowered) became prevalent in art expression, particularly through visual artists' arduous efforts. Possibly, the binary gender-based identity is diminishing and gradually replaced by a more inclusive and all-encompassing concept after queer artists' and feminism artists' practices over the years.
This research paper will be unfolded by three arguments, the identity of anti-oppression, the fluid gender identity, and communal empowerment. Representing a historically oppressed group, rebellious LGBTQ artists resist inequality and break stereotypes through daring imagery and transgressive portraiture. Meanwhile, the concurrent third-wave feminism practices shed lights on gender identities discussion, in which female artists’ practices suggested the fluidity and the perplexity within the discourse. Finally, featured with the identity of empowerment, visual artworks became a non-gendered language to voice for marginalized LGBTQ community, particularly after the AIDs and HIV crisis in the 1980s.