Eden Gard, Writer & Content Producer

Art as a means of self-expression has a long history of being explored by queer individuals as a means of representing facets of themselves and their identity, particularly in surrealism.

“The role of the artist in a decadent capitalist society is determined by the conflict between the individual and various social forms which are hostile to him. This fact alone, in so far as he is conscious of it, makes the artist the natural ally of revolution.”, coined by Andre Breton and Leon Trotsky in their Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art in 1937. Revolution of course, in the sense it was written here, is far more on the nose than how I am using it now (or perhaps how they considered it being used, given the highly gendered and misogynistic undertones of the whole dated manifesto) but in a sense the relevance of this statement holds true for queer artists and queer folk as a whole.

Surrealism has endured in this context as a means of visual rebellion under the idea of, as quoted by Breton being an “attack on consciousness” and the rational. When society can be seen as the rational those who become disenchanted with it turn to the irrational, which can be artistically- surrealism, religiously- paganism or occultism.

Queer people often move towards paganism rather than larger religions, in particular Christianity, for the simple reason that other attracts other, Christianity has always been aligned with the highest powers in capitalist society. The archetypal figure of the white heterosexual man is the most powerful figure in modern day capitalist society, and in modern day Christianity, the figure of God is often presented as such. When this is considered it becomes more apparent why sacrilegious forms are being adopted in art as an expression of rebellion against capitalist society and its figurehead. While traditionally the figure of an angel was an undefined amorphous figure of eyes and fire, in western society this figure has slowly become an image of a white woman or man with wings, and the image of God ruling over them as also an older white man.

As such Christianity has almost become warped in itself to be humanity worshipping the idea of the ‘perfect’ human – in this case a white straight man - in tandem with this image being the most powerful within society. Intrinsically it then makes perfect sense that one who is rejected by society becomes aligned with something that is rejected by Christianity, this is proved in itself by the fast dismissal and sometimes destruction of pagan beliefs in the past that give power to other genders/races/sexualities and pose a threat to the hierarchal system in place, such as the Witch hunts of the 16th and 17th century. The myth of creation within Christianity adds to this, within it contains a hierarchy of all life with humans second only from God, it would then make sense that if all things in life fall on a scale of importance and power that subsections of each part of life would also exist at different levels of power, including within humanity. This once more mirrors capitalism where human life is valued by what it can produce instead of valuing life for the fact it is living. The danger arises of judging all humans to be of the same cardboard cut-out with the same capacity for creating value, and if anyone does not or cannot fit this cut out, they quickly become outcast.

Moving on in connection from this Queer art is often inherently anarchical, it is created in response to dissatisfaction with society. It is made to change and reshape it into a way that is no longer hostile, taking on the idea of Gilles Deluze and Felix Guattari “a rhizome, connecting heterogeneous practices, concerns, and ways of giving meaning to the inhabitants of this earth, with none being privileged and any being liable to connect with any other.” As such with the inseparable Christianity and capitalism, anarchism of society is often inseparable with anarchism in a religious sense, with paganism. It is often common from this, perhaps unsurprisingly, that many Pagan queer folks favour practices that appreciate the earth itself as a higher being, like Deluze and Guattari state giving meaning to all inhabitants directly opposing the Christian creation story which creates the hierarchal ladder. Because of course, it is easy to add extra rungs to any ladder, if humans, animals and plants can be given status what is to stop humans themselves being given subcategories? Which as well know has already happened in systematic racism, misogyny, ableism and queerphobia. The best way to fight back against this is to dismantle the ladder itself and appreciate every part of life itself equally as many pagan religions do. With this knowledge it is perhaps far easier to understand the inherent connection many queer and minority folk feel towards many pagan religions.

As stated by Breton once again “Reality is ugly. Beauty is in what is not real. In order to produce beauty, one must move themselves as far away as possible from reality.”, Surrealism and Paganism often go hand in hand in this sense. If ‘reality’ is taken as ‘western capitalism’ this holds true, beauty is not allowed under capitalism, the capitalistic eye seeks to categorise everything into profit, and, if it cannot be used for profit it shall be destroyed. Queer identity has struggled with erasure and destruction since the rise of western society and the archetypal white man. we have recently seen a switch in only the last decade where queerness has become more normalised and as such capitalism has started to adapt and learn how it can be profited off, it has been allowed in metered and styled doses, pride clothing where money goes towards corporations, companies donning rainbow logos to encourage people to spend their money - often called “rainbow capitalism”. the source of modern day surge of surrealism in queer expression is a direct rejection of this, something cannot be categorised or profited off of if it is not possible to comprehend and understand it in the first place, it also tends to go hand in hand with other things that capitalism deems unworthy and unprofitable, such as kink, an ongoing battle dating back in queer artwork for many years, such as in the works of Tom of Finland and Kenneth Anger.

On the flip side you also have camp, a queer artform which tackles similar topics in a reverse fashion, or so it would seem but as stated by Christopher Isherwood in his analysis of another queer artist, Kenneth anger, who used film to create violent, absurd scenes with heavy homoerotic undertones in order to explore queerness in America in the 90s – “you cant make camp of something you don’t take seriously. You’re not making fun of it you are making fun out of it. You are expressing what is serious to you in terms of fun and artifice and elegance”. Camp is its own language, To most cisgender, heterosexual individuals it is misinterpreted, because it has its own levels of irony that are only understood by queer individuals, as stated by Isherwood, it often has serious undertones and commentaries that are expressed under the guise of fun, something which has at points been vital to queer survival in a world unsuited to them, this in a sense is simply a different facet of rejection against capitalistic categorisation.