The Queer Curatorial Impossible

Here’s a video recording of my talk at the panel on “Curating Sex and Sexuality,” that was held at University College (University of Toronto) on October 13th, 2016. Hosted in conjunction with the Royal Ontario Museum’s (ROM) A Third Gender: Beautiful Youth in Japanese Prints exhibition, the panel explored the questions of curatorial choice in the context of potentially controversial sexual representations. The exhibition is currently on view at the Japan Society in New York, until June 11, 2017.

In my short presentation, I discuss the pair of exhibitions on queer contemporary video art that I curated at V-Tape (Toronto) in 2008: “Love in a time of empty promises,” and “Sex is so abstract.” A revised and slightly expanded version of my paper, “Queer Curating: Abstract and Abject,” will be included in a collection of essays and portfolios on LGBTQIA issues in art and politics, to be published in the September 2017 issue of the bilingual journal of “arts + opinion” Esse.

The other three panelists’ presentations can also be viewed on YouTube.