One of Gerardo Vizmanos' photographs
In a club in Brixton, a bedroom has been deconstructed. Art is balanced on chests of drawers, and a white bed hung thick with lace looks out onto the space. Curated by Elinor Henry, this is an exhibition featuring 22 artists responding to the theme of ‘queer hedonism’ in a variety of forms from sculpture to photography, painting to poetry.
A bedroom, Elinor notes, is the space where a queer person’s self-exploration and discovery begin. A fitting space then, to fill with art that is intimate and personal, expressive and vulnerable.
Highlights of the exhibition include Gerardo Vizmanos’s (@gerardovizmanos) photographs, queer bodies alone and curving around each other, some sexy and some tender, in dialogue with the light spilling onto them. Felix Chesher’s (@felix.chesher) painting ‘woodland’, which zooms in on two bodies close together, their trackies down around their ankles, the painting cutting off at their knees, was another favourite. Parks Sadler’s (@by_parkss) ‘Briefs’ explores memory and the act of archiving queer experiences in a series of prints and sculptures of pairs of underwear donated by the artists ex-partners.
Felix Cheshner's painting 'woodland' and Parks Sadler's brief sculptures arranged on a white dresser
Performances are dotted throughout the day. Artist and poet Ro (@femtxt) live draws bodies onto a white wall, paints strewn around them. Later, in the afternoon we gather at the foot of the bed, where Prishita Maheswari-Aplin (@prishita_eloise) reads a spoken word piece about queer intimacy, sharing a gender euphoric sexual experience with us.
They were then joined by founder of Sodomite and artistic director of STOGGAF (@stoggafco) Kieran Mason (@kieranmason_) for a discussion of hedonism, and what it means in the context of queerness, from pleasure and kink to acceptance and joy in the face of a world that does not always want us to be who we are.
Prishita Maheshwari-Aplin ahead of their reading
Tucked under one of Brixton’s arches, the Queer Hedonism exhibition brings together artists, performers and the community to investigate how we can experience and represent hedonism in it’s queerest form.
Queer Hedonism was created by STOGGAF and took place on Saturday the 30th of September in Club Silly, Brixton.