Last chance: Gay Icons at the National Portrait Gallery

by Lemon Tart

The great British gay community is a big beautiful thing. I despair when people say it’s too proud and overt. For fuck’s sake, there are still a whole load of unlucky people in this country who can’t come out because of their religion/background/guilt. I like to think that eventually this feisty little isle will be so proud that if Prince William became king and had a gay sprog, that little boy/girl would feel comfortable enough to be open about that to the entire nation. (Actually, imagine the clothes. Male or female, there would be no Zara Phillips suit horrors sported by that queen).

However, there is one criticism that’s leveled at LGBTs in the UK that has a kernel of truth to it. While many of the country’s most talented artists/designers/writers etc are LGBT, when a Gay Cultural Event actually happens it’s not always particularly er… cutting edge, shall we say.

Gay Icons at the National Portrait Gallery is no exception. If you haven’t seen it yet, you only have just over two weeks left (it ends on October 18^th). A bit like so many hyped gay things (most mainstream lesbian films, new crisp flavours – ok not strictly gay. Ok not gay. But important to me and I’m gay. Ok tenuous. Anyway. Can brackets be this long? Is there an official linguistic rule on that?). I’ll start again. A bit like so many hyped gay things, I was really looking forward to seeing the NPG’s new offering. I even confessed to fancying the exhibition’s official face: an old KD Lang photograph by Jill Furmanovsky (below). Which disturbed a fellow cake contributor quite a lot.

Despite all this pre-exhibition excitement, as soon as I saw the show – despite wanting and wishing to love it – I couldn’t showhorn my brain into submission. A lot like new crisp flavours.

Also, I confess I wasn’t sober when I went. Which probably mutes any points I’m about to make a little. I also actually saw the exhibition approximately three months ago, and have been ruminating over it ever since. Again, this no doubt further wilts any trust you may or may not have had in this already-too-long review.

Anyway, I’ll be brief: aside from the fact that I didn’t think all the photographs in this exhibition were particularly inspiring, my main issue with Gay Icons was the way it had been curated.

It has to have been the most self-conscious, bureaucratic way of arranging an exhibition ever. Rather than getting some arrogant but very talented genius art twerp to decide who the icons were, we were subjected to lovely-but-sometimes-random icon selections from celebrities such as Jackie Kay, Billie Jean King and Elton John. And not all of their choices were gay. I hate to sound so Daily Mail but… how politically correct. Elton John chose a straight man as one of his icons for example – Graham Taylor, the former England football manager.

This issue was further exacerbated by the exhibition location. This little space, behind the main entrance, is great for some exhibitions – such as Brilliant Women: 18^th Century Bluestockings (13 March – 15 June 2008). Which was brilliant by the way. Yet when used for Gay Icons, it compelled me feel like I was walking into a lesbian club, hidden down a random road, as they often are. I always kind of like that they are, as huge mainstream clubs aren’t my thing – but it made the whole show feel pushed to one side – to one corner of the art world. An exhibition centuries in the making deserved better.

Anyway, back to my main point. As I walked around this mini space, I wondered why the creators of this offering had created an exhibition so weighed down with paranoia? Are we really so nervous about picking gay icons that we have to have a committee of sorts that selects them?

What I would have loved would have been a display of over-huge photographs made by some arrogant genius curator, who picked some all time top gay icons – and then plonked them in a big bold space. With lots more space around each one. And lots of witty odd controversy.

That’s not to say the icons picked weren’t often brilliant – Sarah Waters’ selections, for example, were particularly good. But people will not talk about this exhibition in years to come. It broke no real boundaries – and isn’t that what we’re good at?

For more information about Gay Icons, click here