The Power of Identity. Queer Art 3.0 – Mexico’s remarkable exhibition in London
By James Brewer
The Mexican ambassador’s official residence in London, which is also the office of the naval attaché, pulsed with modish music as the Belgravia mansion hosted a remarkable one-day art exhibition.
The Power of Identity Queer Art 3.0 was the third edition of the Mexican embassy’s historic LGBTQIA2S+ show. The ambitious acronym embraces the terms lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and trans, queer and questioning, intersex, asexual or agender, and two-spirit (the last-named being those who relates to having both a masculine and a feminine spirit).
Outstanding at the event on Thursday August 1, 2024, was a moving mural tribute to a courageous, bracingly talented transgender artist, Hanne Carrington, born in England and who lived in New York before moving to Mexico where she sadly died from illness at the age of 50.
More widely, the “cultural pop-up” took the angle of vision of the LGBT etc community on issues related to resistance and the struggle for rights; and there were some discerning words, for instance, from London-based artist Lorenzo Belenguer exploring by means of his new artwork the multifaceted nature of the word “queer.” The Mexican government described the event – featuring 30 artists with their highly individual ‘voices’ – as “part of an ongoing effort to reinforce the Mexican agenda of inclusion and protection of the rights of LGBTQIA2S+ people, as well as to celebrate our beautiful diversity, rights and freedom.”
For a century, Mexico has had a liberal reputation in its acceptance of radical and dissident artists (such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera) and expatriates, although as in many countries their path has been far from smooth.
The Power of Identity tribute to the transsexual artist, poet and writer Hanne Carrington Reay (1972-2023) was entitled “Life of a Phoenix” with the section curated by cultural manager Rodrigo Arciniega from Mexico City who “passionately advocates” for LGBT+ rights through art.
Rodrigo is a curator for CHASE, the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-east England with funding for a PhD at Birkbeck, University of London. His area of study there is the Gay Cultural Circle, a group of artists active between 1978 and 1986 debating sexual politics in Mexico and beyond.
On show were empowering images by and of Hanne Carrington who grew up near Newcastle upon Tyne, attended Glasgow School of Art, graduated from Glasgow University, lived for 13 years in New York, and moved to Mexico in 2009. Mexico was the country where, discovering her trans identity in 2013 as a female in a man’s body, she had hormone treatment and was “born as a transsexual woman,” sharing on social media her story of transition.
In an introduction of unwavering admiration, Rodrigo wrote: “The exhibition pays tribute to her memory, celebrates her life and understands her death as a cycle of rebirth, similar to that of the phoenix.” He said that Hanne left a profound impression on those fortunate to know her and her art. The objective was to honour her life, valour and invaluable contribution to the world of art and the artistic and transgender community in Mexico.
Six thematic cores were highlighted covering the work of Hanne in her last years in Mexico: self-portraits, Hanne portrayed by the non-binary twins known as Les Gemelxs VS, Drawn Doves, Fabulous Bestiary, Hanne by herself, and women from the Mexico City trans archive.
The painting The Phoenix; Portrait of Hanne Carrington, A Trans Woman by her close collaborators Les Gemelxs VS, conveys Hanne’s stunning spiritual fearlessness. She poses defiantly in a challenge to the male gaze declaiming the beauty of trans women.
In a 2022 interview on theheroines.blogspot.com with Monika Kowalska, Hanne said: “I use my work as a starting point to discuss trans issues with a wider audience and as a form of activism. I am proud to be trans and I try to lend my voice in any way I can to improve the understanding of trans issues and fight prejudice and misunderstanding by correcting misinformation about my community spread by those who would destroy us.”
She said that her paintings were “for me a self-affirmation, a way to explore my own queerness and I hope a representation of transness in art.” While wary of potential risk by travelling outside the capital, “I feel safer here in Mexico City than I would feel in London.”
She considered herself to be a witch in the sense that “through magic I found my Goddesses to be a comfort and source of immense strength. Persephone, Hekate and Aphrodite helped me realise my new-found reality. Magick helped me see the possibilities of my trans identity and reconcile the self-hate, dysphoria and dysmorphia I have lived with for most of my life,” she wrote on thewayofwitch.com in November 2020.
Gemelxs VS, who co-curated Life of a Phoenix with Rodrigo Arciniega, are Victoria Moctezuma and Hugo Enrique Villalobos Solís. They say: “The individuals and identities portrayed in our paintings and drawings are heroic symbols of triumph over censorship, oppression, ignorance, and violence to which we are still subject. They are allegories of the victory of freedom!” In their artistic work, they say, they turn to the body as a symbol of resistance and the nude skin as a political statement of freedom.
Hanne Carrington shared the same surname as Leonora Carrington, another and more famous British-born artist who in 1942 relocated to Mexico, but they were unrelated. Leonora (1917-2011) who became a naturalised Mexican and lived most of her life in the capital, was one of the last surviving adherents of the surrealist movement of the 1930s.
The contribution of Lorenzo Belenguer to the “pop-up” was How Queer Are You? painted in oil on cotton paper. This simple question posed on A4 size paper raises the multifaceted nature of the word “queer.”
In his own enlightening assessment of the term, Lorenzo said: “Once used derogatorily to denote strangeness, it has been reclaimed by the younger LGBTQIA+ community to celebrate gender fluidity, nonconformity, sexual diversity, and a touch of playful mischief.” Through his illustration, we are “invited to reflect on the inherent queerness within us all and to embrace our human diversity. It challenges us to shed the self-imposed constraints of societal norms and celebrate the freedom of our authentic selves.”
Lorenzo makes use of found objects, images from magazines, and copies of traditional European paintings to help advocate for a more compassionate and loving society. London-based Lorenzo, who was born in Valencia, Spain, is a non-binary visual artist strongly influenced by minimalism and Arte Povera. He has variously exhibited or performed at the Tate Modern, Serpentine Galleries and the Venice Biennale. He ran a community art gallery In London for seven years and a project for London 2012 called Testimonies. He holds an MA in Artificial Intelligence & Philosophy from the New College of the Humanities in London, and a BA (Hons) in Economics and Business Science from the University of Valencia.
Pedro Montalvo — “my work as a photographer is based in creating order and beauty” – meanwhile won praise for a series of images featuring non-binary Zapotec people in the southern state of Oaxaca. The photos included Un Día en el Mercado (A Day in the market). Many at the exhibition were surprised to learn that the group called muxes who identify as a third gender have been part of indigenous culture since pre-colonial times. Non-binary people who are assigned male status at birth but dress and behave in ways associated with women. The muxes campaign for greater acceptance of sexual diversity. They have been part of the global LGBTQ+ movement and defied gender binaries for generations
Pedro is the founder of Suspiro Travel (www.suspirotravel.com) which organises tailor-made tours including to the studios of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. His two passions are for the country of his birth and for photography. Being driven around the country from an early age in his parents’ white Volkswagen “I learnt that Mexico is art.”
He studied photography at Mexico’s National Autonomous University and gained an Honours degree in Fine Arts at London Metropolitan University. He chronicled in photographs the projects of construction companies in Mexico and Panama, and in Colorado was a staff photographer for the Aspen Daily News. In the UK he has worked for Shell, the Middle East Association, and Sea Containers Hotel London.
The presence of three drag queens at the “pop-up” drew considerable attention: in effect a mini drag show with maximum impact. The well-built, glam performers posed for photos, in what amounted to a nod to the revived popularity of drag entertainment. It was but a few days since three such artists made history as the first to carry an Olympic torch, representing the LGBTQIA+ community, for the 2024 Paris Olympics. One of those who took to the Olympic stage, Minima Gesté, said it was a great opportunity to convey a positive image in the face of “months of hatred on social networks and in the media” about her being a torchbearer.
Among the guests at the London exhibition, Sinéad Stone, a nurse by profession, said that the scintillating artworks brought gladdening memories of visiting festivals in Cancún and elsewhere, including the Day of the Dead, a lively observance that originated with the Aztecs and Toltecs in which families pay homage to their ancestors. At the same time, the festival participants celebrate life with feasting and singing in graveyards in the presence of papier-mâché skeletons.
Curation and production of the London exhibition overall was by Fernando G Champion, Sabrina Martinez, Mariana Ortiz, Jessica Cuapio, Adela Murillo. Guests were treated to tequila-based paloma cocktails and coco fresca, a non-alcoholic beverage based on coconut water, elderflower cordial, lime juice and grapefruit soda.
The call for entries to The Power of Identity was open to any individual residing in the UK. It resulted in a freewheeling survey of diversity without getting awkwardly embroiled in some of the contentiousness of gender politics.
