Queer sexuality in Islamic art explored in Norway exhibition

""Our hope is to visualise a queer genealogy of Islamic art history, through which the public gains insight into diverse cultures of sexuality that have unfolded across the historical and contemporary Islamic world. In the contemporary Islamic world, we are also bringing into relation queer diasporas across North America, Europe and other parts of the world," Bhangu tells The Art Newspaper."

""the over-reliance on contemporary works [in other projects and exhibitions]... suggests that homosexuality and queer desires are solely the products of the current postcolonial era [and] thus inheritors of only Western models of sexuality", adds Bhangu."

Curated by Noor Bhangu, Deviant Ornaments opens at the National Museum in Oslo and examines queer desires and practices within Islamic visual cultures across a millennium. The exhibition brings together more than 40 historic objects and works by 12 contemporary artists, including Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Alize Zorlutuna, Shahzia Sikander and Taner Ceylan. Highlighted works include a Safavid textile (1567), an early-19th-century armband by Ali Ghulam Khanezad, Sikander's Promiscuous Intimacies (2020) and Ceylan's Fake World (2011). The show seeks to visualize a queer genealogy and connect diasporic queer cultures across regions.

Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events