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Gilbert & George

20/06/2019 By ACOMSDave

This Gilbert and George exhibition has now ended, and I was fortunate to be able to see all the exhibits on three different occasions. 

& George

Wikipedia says that …Gilbert Prousch,sometimes referred to as Gilbert Proesch (born 17 September 1943 in San Martin de Tor, Italy) and George Passmore (born 8 January 1942 in Plymouth, United Kingdom) are two artists who work together as the collaborative art duo Gilbert & George. They are known for their distinctive and highly formal appearance and manner in performance art, and also for their brightly coloured graphic-style photo-based artworks.

So the MAC brought three galleries of Gilbert & George’s work for display and discussion.  And indeed, if nothing else, the works do provide discussion items.  The exhibits are large, and you do need to take time to peruse each item, and the parts that make it up.  However, I must state now that it was not a body of work that excited me.  I came away from the exhibit looking for a theme, for a catch that made the series of displays of highly technical works gel together with each other, other than by colour – and for me, they don’t.

It was obvious that there were references to London streets, to various political statements, but I needed more context.  I was looking for the story and I didn’t find one.

Should the Gilbert & George exhibition be in your area, I would urge you to go.  Potentially you will see something that I missed – I hope so.

PS – having just been to the Ulster museum this weekend, there is one large piece by Gilbert & George on show on floor 4 – so if you missed the main body of work, at least you could catch up with one piece.

Location: The MAC [Metropolitan Arts Centre] – Belfast

Dates of show: 22 Jan – 22 April 2018

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Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: art, Gilbert & George, large scale, London, photographic

21 million people take part in global LGBTI film festival

26/03/2015 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

21 million people take part in global LGBTI film festival

fiveFilms4freedom LGBT film festival finds audience in over 125 countries.
Gay Star News:  25 MARCH 2015 | BY GARETH JOHNSON
Image courtesy of BFI Flare festival.
LGBTI Film Festival

LGBTI Film Festival

The BFI Flare film festivalis popular enough that even if you live in London you have to be lucky to get a ticket to watch the LGBT themed films being shown.
If you are LGBT and live in countries such as India, Poland, or the Ukraine, your opportunities of being able to watch movies that reflect your sexuality and your experiences will be even more remote.
The British Council, which is a UK organisation that internationally promotes British culture and education, has partnered with the BFI Flare festival and UK charity Stonewallto create a digital, global, LGBT film festival.
UK film-maker Paul Greengrass (director of movies such as The Bourne Supremacy, and Captain Phillips) is actively supporting the positive role that film festivals can play:
‘Film festivals at their best are a window and also a mirror’ said Greengrass. ‘…a window through which we can see the world, and a mirror in which we can see ourselves.’
The 5Films4freedom festival runs from 19-29 March 2015, the five films available through the online festival have already reached over 21 million people in 125 different countries around the world.
The five short films that are screening as part of the festival are:
An Afternoon (En Eftermiddag)
Director Søren Green’s new short film is an exploration of nascent sexuality. Mathias and Frederik are two friends who spend an afternoon together; Mathias has decided that this is the time to tell Frederik that he is in love with him.
Chance
Jake Graf’s self-funded short film focuses on older gay love and overcoming loneliness as a chance encounter between Trevor and a mysterious stranger equally troubled by his own past, forces both men to start to live again.
Code Academy
Canadian writer and director Nisha Ganatra is best known as Producer/Director of Transparent, the Golden Globe-winning TV series. When searching for love in all the virtual places, Frankie, Libby and Sheridan of The Code Academy are their own worst enemy.
Morning Is Broken
Director and writer Simon Anderson’s 2014 film is a coming-of-age drama set in the English countryside, following a young man’s struggle to come to terms with his sexuality while at his older brother’s wedding.
True Wheel
Director Nora Mandray’s 2015 documentary focuses on Fender Bender, an inspirational bicycle workshop for Detroit’s queer and transgender communities.
The films showing as part of the festival can be viewed via the BFI online player.

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Filed Under: Movie Reviews Tagged With: bfi flare, British Council, British films, British people, Captain, Cinema of the United Kingdom, director, entertainment, Film festival, Independent films, LGBT culture in India, London, Paul Greengrass, Poland, Social Issues, the BFI Flare festival, Ukraine, United Kingdom

Gay Star Travel Expo

18/11/2014 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

Discover the hottest gay destinations in 2015

The Gay Star Travel Expo returns to London over the weekend of January 17/18th to showcase the hottest gay destinations in 2015 – from the best cruises to the fiercest party islands
18 NOVEMBER 2014 | BY DAN BEESON
Come to the Gay Star Travel Expo 2015 in January

Scott Nunn

Now in its second year, the Gay Star Travel Expo is taking place over the weekend of 17/18th January 2015 at London’s Heaven nightclub.
Showcasing the hottest destinations for gay travel in 2015, the expo hosts tourist boards and top travel brands ready to help you plan the best year of your life in travel.
Once you’ve discovered your trip(s) of a lifetime, stick around as the daytime expo transforms into a holiday-themed club night with competitions, giveaways and more – you could even win a mystery getaway!
Tickets are free but please book yours here to claim special offers during the expo.
LIKE the Gay Star Travel Expo 2015 facebook page for exclusive teasers and announcements!

– See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/gay-star-travel-expo-discover-hottest-gay-destinations-2015181114#sthash.LOnXSq1p.dpuf

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Filed Under: History Tagged With: expo, gay star, London, travel

DO THE GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE SUPPORT IAN PAISLEY ???

24/01/2014 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

Out-take from Gay Star No. 2
July / August 1980
DO THE GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE SUPPORT IAN PAISLEY ???
During the recent Gay Pride Week in London, members of the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association were attacked at a meeting organised by the Gay Activists Alliance by supporters of the Troops Out Movement who argued that we should not be making any demands for a change in the law.  They said that the Government, which could make those changes, the Westminster Government, is a foreign Government which has no business legislating for Northern Ireland. By demand-ing changes in the law we are recognising the right of this foreign Government to rule over us.
It’s funny how one always has to go to London to hear arguments like that.  No one here has ever suggested that we put our interests into cold storage until the great day when Mr. Haughey becomes our Prime Minister.  Whether we want to see a united Ireland or maintain the union with Great Britain, the argument is stupid and only English people – or people who have been living a long time in England – could have thought of it.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION
NIGRA is solely concerned with improving the lot of homosexuals in Northern Ireland.  It contains members with nationalist sympathies and members with unionist sympathies.  NIGRA as such will continue to work for gay people whatever government is in power.  We don’t argue that our interests are necessarily more important than the Constitutional question, but we leave it to members who feel strongly on either side of that question to join whatever other political bodies they like, without their decision prejudicing their membership of NIGRA.
At present, Northern Ireland exists as a region governed by Westminster and separate from the Republic.  There is no point in us asking favours from Mr Haughey who – in the unlikely event of his wanting to – can do nothing for us.  Westminster is the government with which we have to deal.  If that situation changes, we will change with it.
But perhaps our interests are affected by such ‘political’ considerations.  One thing we can probably all agree is that we don’t want to be governed by Dr Paisley who has been very active in opposition to us.  Paisley is very popular in Northern Ireland not because of his campaign against us, but because he has represented himself as the most hard line opponent of a united Ireland.  And, rightly or wrongly, most of the people living here are strongly opposed to a united Ireland.
PAISLEY IN POWER?
Because of Paisley’s popularity, any devolved government in Northern Ireland – whether it is relatively powerless thing proposed by Humphrey Atkins [the then Secretary of State – upstart 2013] or a full-blown independent Parliament – is likely to be headed by Paisley.  That is not a prospect that can fill us with delight.  So we are not enthusiastic about the idea of having a devolved government in Northern Ireland.
Furthermore, although the law in the rest of the United Kingdom is far from satisfactory, it is still better than the law here and in the Republic (where, in both places, the pre-1967 laws are still in force).
We are therefore pressing for the same laws to apply throughout the UK.  And in that general principle we have – according to a recent opinion poll – the support of over 90% of both Protestants and Catholics.  For most people, homosexuality is a marginal issue and, in what they would see as the main issues, we have always had much the same legislation as the rest of the UK, since Stormont used to pursue a ‘step by step’ policy of keeping in line with Westminster.  For example, we have the welfare legislation Labour introduced after the war [WW2 – upstart 2013] despite the fact that our largely Tory devolved government disliked it.  Since there is no great desire for legislation that is very different from that passed at Westminster, it seems that, so long as we remain in the UK, there is no need for us to have any sort of devolved Parliament.
REMOVAL OF THE TROOPS
But the Troops Out supporters aren’t interested in such a modest, ‘reformist’ approach.  They think that we should throw our interests as homosexuals to the winds, and lend all our support to efforts to get rid of the army (i. e. that we should join the Provisionals.  Or possibly the Irish Independence Party [the ‘double-I’ P, now defunct. It, like the People’s Democracy, ‘kept the seats warm’ for Sinn Féin – upstart 2013] who are the only people who are calling immediate withdrawal of the troops).  The likely result of the immediate withdrawal of the troops (after a period of open and vicious warfare) would be the establishment of an independent Ulster – with Paisley on top.  If there were to be a united Ireland, the troops would have to enforce it.  Is this what these people want?  Is it what they think we should want?
No.  We are not prepared to campaign for the removal of the troops.  And we are even prepared to oppose the removal of the troops unless there is some guarantee that it won’t result in a (possibly smaller) Paisleyite state.  And as long as we are in the UK, we want (at least) the same laws as far as homosexuals are concerned as prevail in the rest of the UK.  In making this demand, we expect the support of everyone throughout the UK who is involved in gay politics.  And we support them in their search for further changes.  AS far as those of us who want to see a united Ireland are concerned, that no more compromises their principles than demanding better pay and conditions would compromise the principles of a trade unionist who wanted to see a united Ireland.
The only possible effect of the policy proposed by the Gay Activists Alliance would be to split us into a Republican Gay Rights Movement and a Loyalist Gay Rights Movement, both of them subjecting their particular interests as gays to the greater interest of their respective ’causes’.  We are not prepared to oblige them.
Semi-editorial written, probably by Peter Brooke, then – 1980 – GS Editor.

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Filed Under: Campaigns Tagged With: gay pride week, gay rights, ian paisley, London, Ulster

History Recalled – the Letter that OUT did not print about Peter Mandelson coming to Ulster

12/01/2014 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

(Out-take from upstart November 2000)
 
HISTORY RECALLED  – The Letter That OUT did NOT print
 
OUT Letters
Prince Street Station
PO Box 630
New York NY 1001
 
Dear Editor,
 

‘MANDY’ MANDELSON & NORTHERN IRELAND

 
In your January 2000 edition (issue 74) you carried an item about Peter Mandelson — the former Cabinet Minister, and Tony Blair favourite — being given the job of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.  It was strongly implied that we quaintly reactionary Ulster-folk would be horrified at having a ‘Sodomite’ sent amongst us, a notion gleaned from the self-consciously fashionable (and stupid) Gay publications produced in London.  A city which is 55 minutes away from Belfast by plane, but several light years psychologically – think Manhattan and Juneau.
The response to Mandelson in Northern Ireland has been pretty muted, apart from the odd mildly satirical article about his spending the Christmas holiday with his Brazilian ‘friend’, with a local television personality who is also famously (and rather futilely) closeted.  Gayness is simply not pass-remarkable in this part of the world anymore, partly due to the work of this organisation over nearly thirty years.
Other groups have of course played their part: the major one being Cara-Friend the befriending and welfare wing of the over-all Gay movement, which has helped tens of thousands of lesbians, gay men, bisexual, transsexual, transgender and transvestite people to come to terms with themselves, over the past quarter of a century. The Pride committees have also done a great deal to make the community come forward.  2000 will be Belfast’s Tenth LGBT Pride and all the stops will be pulled out to make it a memorable festival.
That might be difficult, because in 1999, Pride enjoyed talks from Bishop Pat Buckley on the ‘ethical’ aspect of being Gay, while Jeff Dudgeon (about whose struggle against the UK government at the European Court of Human Rights, BBC Radio 4 UK broadcast a dramatisation in November 1999) gave a workshop on Roger Casement’s wide and deep connections with Belfast.  There was a Civic Reception in City Hall addressed by the Deputy Mayor Ms Marie Moore, and a half-hour programme shown on prime time television.  There were many other events and workshops, a poetry -reading and an art exhibition among other things.
NIGRA since 1993 has organised solidarity actions with ILGO (the Irish Lesbian & Gay Organisation of New York) in its struggle against the bigotry of the AOHA (Ancient Order of Hibernians in America).

Yours faithfully,

Seán McGOURAN

Secretary,

NI Gay Rights Association

[The above letter was sent in January 2000, by ‘snail-mail’, we think.  The date ‘November 2000’ had to do with the erratic production of upstart, a private concern that depended on whether or not the people producing it were employed and in funds.]

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Filed Under: Anti-Bullying & Homophobia Tagged With: history, London, OUT, peter mandelson, Ulster

QUEER HUMANISM

14/07/2013 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

In the article Queerish London I made a smart-alecky remark about Gay / Queer Humanism.  Then I found the notes I took on the occasion of the talk by the novelist Jonathan Kemp…  It was a substantial and interesting talk.  He felt that Humanism like ‘queer’ was questioning and critical.  ‘Queer’ questioned ‘normality’ and the ‘normative’.  Is homosexuality simply a variant sexuality – or is there more to it than that?  ‘Homosexual’ was coined in 1869; in 1878 came ‘heterosexual’.  This had to do with the (presumably national – upstart) ‘identity politics’ as practised in ‘Britain’, France, the US and Germany – a Gay Pride demonstration at any time between 1890 and 1970 is simply unimaginable.
‘Homosexual’ held fire for some decades, but between 1895 and 1905 over a thousand books were published on the matter.  They expressed every possible reaction to ‘the problem’.  Except what we today would regard as a liberationist one.  Even Edward Carpenter, (a very famous poet / advocate at the turn of the 19th / 20th century), was craving indulgence.  There is still debate about whether or not ‘homo / hetero’ is a dichotomy, Jonathan quoted Foucault’s rejection of the notion and his reassertion of Freud’s idea that everyone is born ‘polymorphous perverse’. Those who label themselves ‘Lesbian and Gay’, want (in the title of Bruce Bawer’s book, A Seat at the Table), ‘queers’ want to burn the table.
 
Only connect 
It is a vivid image, but ‘Gay’ people – as in the Gay Liberation Front – also wanted to burn it.  We did not merely grow old, crabby and ‘reformist’, and add an ‘L’ to our titles.  We realised that we did not have the social power to bring about a revolution.  The ‘Gay’ movement was a product of the feminist / Women’s movement, and similar trends in the 1960s and 1970s, including the African-American Civil Rights (and after, ‘Black Power’) movements.  A major strategist of the former was the ‘shamelessly’ Gay Bayard Rustin.  The Black Panthers, as a movement, supported GLF.  Most early members of the NI Gay Rights Association had been members, or at least supporters of, the NI Civil Rights Association.  (When EM Forster wrote “only connect’…” he articulated something substantial.)
What homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, queer (and ‘L&G’) people want to ‘integrate’ into today (2012 / 2013) is a society we have done a great deal to change. I’m not suggesting that Mr. Kemp is claiming that British / English society is an unchanging monolith – but the change in the UK since I was 13 (March 1, 1960) seems barely credible.  Abortion was illegal, as was suicide (incredible though that may seem). Trade unionists appeared on television justifying strikes against the employing of some people, because of their skin-tint. Reputable journals campaigned against homosexual men – simply for being.  Most never mentioned ‘the problem’ unless it became impossible to ignore. The Observer, the Times, and some enlightened provincial papers (CHE [Campaign for Homosexual Equality]-founder Allan Horsfall’s local Nelson Leader for example), took a rational attitude to homosexuality, and to law reform.
‘Queer theory’ is deconstructionist (a problem with this is that ‘queer’ and ‘deconstruction’ are nebulous concepts – SMcG).  It is, apparently, a political metaphor without any fixed reference.  In its critique of politics, arts and the rest ‘queer’ can never settle. Meaning it has, thereby, no points of contact with matters of substance?  Surely one can only ‘critique’ if one has some solid core values?  Our history is in law court transcripts and in ‘gay porn’.  This, surely, ignores much literature and art produced by cultures which were not homophobic, including our own, ‘western’, ‘Christian’ one at points in its history.
 
Hollywood values? 
The fact that Hollywood has dominated the culture of the ‘Anglosphere’ for a century ought not to blind us to the fact that it is a lop-sided culture.  Hollywood leans very heavily towards northern European, Protestant, norms and not those of southern (and Irish) Catholic Europe, the Jews, or the many other cultures on the planet – or even just in the USA.  Native American cultures largely found a role for people who were not prepared to accept the one their gender implied – one of the reasons why they were marked down for physical extermination.
 
The working class voice
The ‘working class voice’ is not heard in our (LGBT) history.  But working people were excluded from general being_gay_isnt_voluntary_but_hate_ishistory, except sometimes as ‘the mob’, until fairly recently (historically speaking).  And it could be argued that that ‘voice’ is still pretty muted, and it is being ‘cultivated’ by the enlightened element in the traditional ‘ruling class’ / bourgeoisie.  (This tends not to apply to Ireland, but the urban working class were not the majority class until recently.*  And the rise of DTP – ‘desk top publishing’ – is making history, even ‘literature’, genuinely democratic.)  We queers are not the authors of our own history mainly because we were, at best interesting oddities – like dancing bears.  Or at worst, human garbage who do not deserve to live alongside ‘normal’ people (the attitudes of the British Realm and the Nazi Realm were, as in many other cases, only matters of degree).
I am aware of the fact that the above reads like a rather ill tempered rejection of nearly everything Jonathan said.  It isn’t (and my notetaking is probably quite wayward, too), but his diversion into ‘queer theory’ was quite lengthy and needed to be dealt with.  I’m also aware that reportage and comment are rather intertwined above.  It is a pity this fascinating talk was not recorded.  Possibly Jonathan Kemp has a transcript or notes that can be written-up.

Seán McGouran

 
* ‘Ireland’ today means ‘the Republic’ / ’26 Counties’, excluding ‘Northern Ireland’.  But I mean (above) the whole island.  It’s true to say that the urban working class was large in ‘the North’.  Because of ethno-sectarian division it didn’t have the muscle it ought to have had.
Belfast was the fer de lance of the great 1919 strike, involving dock and railway workers, coal miners, encompassing London and ‘Red Clydeside’.  The lance was blunted.  There was no ‘Red Laganside’ due to sectarianism, sharpened by anti-Sinn Féin / ‘Bolshevik’ rhetoric from Orange platforms.

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Filed Under: History Tagged With: gay, homosexuality, humanist, Jonathan Kemp, London, queer

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