queer show 3 review

That's better.

For its third iteration Queer Show moved out of Kraak across the centre of town to railway arches close to Retro Bar, outside the barriers around Pride.

The symbolism is important.

There are concerns that Kraak the venue has piggy-backed on hard work done by others, including Debbie Sharp (one of the organisers of this show), to establish Kraak the gallery.

Regarding Pride many people are unhappy, not just at the cost of tickets (£17.50 for a day, £25 for the weekend, not to mention 'Platinum tickets' that allow you to 'rub shoulders with the stars'), but that Manchester charges at all. I believe (though I'm happy to be corrected) that Manchester is the only UK Pride to charge entry. It's certainly a long way from Stonewall.

Last year I'm afraid I found large parts of the show unambitious and uninteresting, though there was a lot that was worth seeing.

This year there was a far greater sense of purpose, from the move out of Kraak to an uncontrolled urban space, to the work itself which was engaged, political, and in several cases durational in a way that denied narrative readings.

It was also fascinating to see people walking past in the multistorey carpark next door utterly oblivious to what was happening a couple of metres from them.

In fact the whole dynamic of having a transient show in a neglected non-public, public space added a lot to the experience. The space of course is already full of readymade texts, images and objects that might legitimately be part of the exhibition, or at least have their meaning transformed by its presence.

It encourages you to think about the dynamic of exhibition and audience, audience and artist, artist and space, space and exhibition, and more.

So what of the exhibition itself?

I'll start with the films. There were a number of short artists films, the three most compelling being two contributions from K Beard, and one from Siân Williams.

The first of K Beard's films showed the head and shoulders of a man, in orange lighting, as his expression changed and he moved a little. He might have been masturbating, or had someone else masturbating or sucking him off. Or he might have been in pain, or reliving a past experience. It was immaterial, and never explained.

The second film was black and white and showed two bearded men kissing.

Siân's film was called something like Road Movie, and I think was an extract from a longer work. It consisted of protracted static shots of a petrol station from three or four different angles. These shots played out and were repeated. There was not a trace of movement or human presence. The location might have been almost anywhere.

There was also a performance from Rosanne Robertson. In the middle of the space she glued a beard to her face - the glue stick itself rather resembling a shaving brush, and the actions reminiscent of lathering. When the beard was in place she covered it in shaving foam and removed it using an old-fashioned razor, as in the photo below.

Other works were more explicitly political. Rosanne had a series of rainbow flag postcards for visitors to sign that will be posted to the governor of St Petersburg, a twin city of Manchester, who recently passed anti-'gay propaganda' laws.

Debbie Sharp had a swear-box in which was a repeated snippet of sound (I believe from a video), addressing the use of Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 to threaten free speech. Peter Tatchell writes on the subject at the Huffington Post.

She also had a short film, I think dealing with broadly the same material (though again, as with everything here, I'm happy to be corrected). In it an abstract pink photographic images gradually emerged from blackness. A little behind it, as it were, a confusion of noise slowly built, until both reached a great intensity. At which point the film ended.

A more spontaneous, environmental piece (I think by Rosanne) was in some ways reminiscent of Homocult's posters and flyers. A huge number of cigarette butts were arranged into large letters spelling out FAGS.

The exhibition, the location, the spirit of the event made this for me the most exciting visual art experience since EVERYTHING'S GREAT! earlier in the year.