Kiss My Genders


Mixed exhibition at the Hayward Gallery featuring work which explore and celebrates gender identity and fluidity.

I’d looked forward to this show hoping for a fun but challenging collection of contemporary art however I found quite a lot of the work took itself very seriously and some of the commentaries were fairly impenetrable in their convoluted wordy explanations of the work such as a description of sculptures which “examine the bio-politics behind identity formation.” There were some standout pieces which I’ll describe but there was also a lot of overly self-conscious work.

On the whole I thought portrait photographs came out of the show best as they record communities and invite you to engage with them. I liked Peter Hujar’s black and white pictures of his friends in 1970s and 80s  New York, Zanele Muholi’s pictures of the black lesbian and trans gender community in South Africa and Catherine Opie’s pictures which isolate sitters against a brightly coloured background in a Renaissance style.

My favourite piece was the dress in this photograph by Hunter Reynolds made for his alter ego Patina du Prey called “The Memorial Dress”. It is printed with the names of 25,000 individuals known to have died of AIDS-related illnesses and he would wear it on a revolving stage and become a living memorial. I found hit a very moving piece.

This exhibition does hold the accolade of being the first to warn me not just about flashing lights as I went in but also the presence of latex in case you were allergic!

Closes 8 September 2019

Review
Guardian



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