This extravagantly curated volume, drawn from the Victoria and Albert Museum’s renowned photography collection, offers a landmark investigation into queer history through the photographic medium. Spanning the mid-19th century to the present, the book celebrates the diversity of global LGBTIQ+ representation while using photography as the central medium for the expression, documentation, and celebration of queer life.
The book begins with an introductory essay from Zorian Clayton, leading into six themed chapters: Icons, Staged, Body, Liberty, Making a Scene, and Beyond the Frame. Each narrative is engaging, pairing incisive essays with sumptuously visual plate sections. The addition of expanded captions and “artist in focus” features throughout allows readers to engage more deeply with key works and the life stories of pioneering photographers whose work has influenced queer visual culture.
The book includes a comprehensive variety of imagery: monumental assertions of queer identity, tender voyages of self-discovery, and frank documentation of life’s pleasure, hard work, and difficulty. Included are pieces that document the historical struggle and evolution of queer activism, performance, and nightlife and inventive photographic fiction, which contest standard visions of gender and sexuality. Documenting legal battles, and celebrations of subcultures, this is an impressively inclusive, cogently nuanced approach to the crossings of art and queer experience.
Not only does this book give great insight into the strong social and political impact that both queer photographers and subjects have, but it also underscores how photography can reshape perceptions and expand narratives of identity and community.
This volume provides an easily accessible, visually radiant read that is nothing but essential to any scholar, researcher, or reader whose interests involve the history of photography, queer studies, or cultural history in general. Whether a long-time art historian or a curious new voice, the breadth this book maintains will undoubtedly appeal to and inspire.