'Dying a Very British Death: Ecstatic Antibodies and the Possibilities of Censorship of Queer Art in Britain, c.1990'

The 1990 exhibition Ecstatic Antibodies: Resisting the AIDS Mythology (Impressions Gallery of Photography, York), was conceived by the curators Tessa Boffin and Sunil Gupta as a pro-sex, pro-queer artistic intervention into the politics of representation of the AIDS crisis in the UK. The show featured a range of painting, photography, moving image and installation work, and opened to considerable local controversy in York, before its display at the Viewpoint Gallery, Salford was preemptively cancelled by the city council with murmurs of Thatcher's notorious Section 28 as cause. The few subsequent accounts have likened this censorship to that experienced by artists in the 'culture wars' in the United States in 1990s. In this paper I contest such a parallel between the US and UK contexts, rethinking Richard Meyer's canonical art historical account of censorship as productive of queer art. Ecstatic Antibodies, I argue, faced the particular idiosyncrasies, false starts, and deep repressions of British culture at the turn of the 1990s, forces that worked to foreclose, rather than enable, its artistic project.

Guidelines and helpful tips for joining Zoom webinars

Before the event

• Please download Zoom software in advance
• Please register to attend the Research Lunch webinar through Eventbrite
• We will share the link to the Zoom webinar with you in advance by email through Eventbrite

During the event

• There will be a Waiting Room feature that allows the host to control when all participants join the meeting
• You will be automatically muted when you join the webinar and can only communicate verbally if the host unmutes you
• We will wait for a few minutes at the start of the webinar to allow time for attendees to sign-in
• The talk will last for c. 25 minutes and will be followed by a Q&A where the chair will prompt discussion
• Use the Q&A box to ask/write your questions after the talk
• You can also use the virtual Raise Hand button if you have a question/comment to make by audio
• Use Chat box to make comments
• If you are experiencing any technical problems, please notify Ella Fleming (Events Manager) or Danielle Convey (Events Assistant) directly using the chat box function. Alternatively you can email them via [email protected]
• This session will not be recorded
• Any offensive behaviour will not be tolerated and attendees can be removed from the webinar by the host

GDPR

The Paul Mellon Centre is aware of its obligations under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and is committed to processing your data securely and transparently.

For more information on how the Centre processes personal information see our privacy policy here: https://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/about/privacy-policy

For more information on Zoom’s compliance with EU GDPR see: https://zoom.us/gdpr