Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery of art works made since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967 which help to tell the recent history of the LGBT+ community. The show was a bit wordy in places and took great pains to define various terms. I felt the art works, with good commentaries, could have told this story without too many general explanations. At times it didn’t seem to be sure whether it was just trying to inform and tell a story or educate. There were over 60 works in the show and included some revelations to me and I thought I knew gay/contemporary art quite well! I hadn’t seen paintings by Derek Jarman before and there was a landscape and a work called Morphine, painted over tabloid covers which were outing a young actor. It was a nice touch to hang this by Richard Hamilton’s portrait of Jarman. I liked Stewart Home’s work superimposing his own figure over those of models and his own mother to create a fluid image. Also Matt Sm...

Touching exhibition at the British Library marking the 50th anniversary since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in Britain and how life has changed since. There was a good section on life before the Act and the events which were starting to lead to it including the Oscar Wilde trail and the Wolfenden report. I was delighted to see a lot of material from the Bloomsbury Group including a touching recording of Vita Sackville-West reading a letter to her from the author Virginia Woolf explaining that her book Orlando is based on Vita and grew out of their relationship. I’d not realised before that Orlando was published in the same year as “The Well of Loneliness” which was banned. There was a touching section on prosecutions including a photograph of John Gielgud in the play he was in at the time of his arrest. He had been frightened of appearing but the audience cheered him at the end. The show was strong on how literature and popular culture have influe...