From Visibility to Action

The Art of Depicting Gender Diversity

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How is the Canadian art world treating artists from the trans and gender diverse communities? Galleries West put that question to matthew heinz, a professor in the College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Royal Roads University in Victoria. He is the author of Entering Transmasculinity: The Inevitability of Discourse (Intellect Press, U.K., 2016) and serves on the Steering Committee of the University of Victoria’s Chair in Transgender Studies. 

When trans actress and activist Laverne Cox was pictured on the cover of Time June 9, 2014, her image signalled what the magazine labelled “The Transgender Tipping Point.” Seeing ourselves on screen and book covers, in magazines, in photography and other visual art exhibits has been empowering and, for some of us, lifesaving. 

But a decade later, increased visibility of trans, non-binary, gender-diverse and gender nonconforming bodies has been greeted by political backlash against, not just our visibility, but our mere existence. Flashpoints vary from the participation of trans athletes in sports to the use of gender-affirming pronouns in schools.

Fortunately, photographers and other artists have stepped up to the complex task of documenting, portraying, and inserting gender diverse lives into public discourse. Equally fortunately, such work has received national and international exposure, support from granting agencies and interest from art gallery curators. In particular, the invisibility of Indigenous, Black, and other racialized queer visual artists and their subjects is being addressed. 

For example, three of the five finalists for the 2023 Sobey Art Award exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada offer queer perspectives. Michèle Pearson Clarke, who was born in Trinidad and now lives in Toronto, served as the second Photo Laureate for the City of Toronto (2019-2022). Her work explores Black and queer experiences. Séamus Gallagher’s queer aesthetics question the possibilities of representation. Gallagher’s work has been honoured with the 2022 Nova Scotia Emerging Artist Recognition Award. Kablusiak, a multidisciplinary Inuvialuk artist from Calgary, received the 2023 Sobey award in November. The Sobey jury described Kablusiak’s work in these words: “Their multidisciplinary vocabulary deploys the experience of being looked at without being seen that shapes Inuit and queer realities in both the art world and society at large.” The work of these artists is on display at the National Gallery in Ottawa until March 3, 2024.

The 2023 Scotiabank New Generation Photography Award recognized three recipients, whose work also is on display at the National Gallery until Jan. 7, 2024. One of these photographers is Wynne Neilly, a queer and trans photographer who provided Time’s cover shot of Canadian actor, Oscar-nominated Elliot Page in the edition of March 29/April 5, 2021. Page’s portrayal was the first time a trans man had been featured on the cover of Time. Reflective of the increased politicization of trans and gender diverse bodies, the cover story placed Page’s coming out in the context of the “fight for trans equality.”

Both Cox’s and Page’s portrayal photographically center transitions to a stable (trans)gender. Two B.C. exhibits further invite viewers to push binary boundaries. 

These two Vancouver Island exhibits offer intersectional approaches to gender and sexuality from contemporary Canadian 2SLGBTQ+ artists. Celestial Bodies, a group exhibition by Cassils, Adrien Crossman, Dayna Danger, Rah Eleh, Brandon Hoax, Zachari Logan and Vivek Shraya, was at the Campbell River Art Gallery (The CRAG) from Sept. 2 to Nov. 11 this year. The artists, employing media ranging from photography to beading to sculpture, seek to celebrate and advocate for queer and non-binary ways of being. 

Kali Spitzer’s exhibition Bodies Of, Bodies Within opened Nov. 18 at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. The exhibit presents selections from several of Spitzer’s photography series. Spitzer describes Bodies Of, Bodies Within as “a selection of tintype and 35 mm film photographs centering and celebrating my queer, trans, and indigenous kin.”  Spitzer is Kaska Dena from Daylu (Lower Post, B.C.) on her father’s side. On her mother’s side, she is Jewish from Transylvania, Romania. The exhibition continues until March 17, 2024.

Such exhibits offer visibility. They document our existence. But even more importantly, they constitute cultural calls to action. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not “visible” in visual art unless they are marked so, whether by title or caption, by context, by performance or by challenging normative expectations. All of us have sex assignments, gender identities, and sexual orientations. But only for a small number of us, these are constructed as political battlegrounds. 

Visual art can help all of us to sense the artificiality of human-made categories such as sex, gender, sexual orientation, or race, which have such profound implications for our everyday lives. By inviting us to question, visual art can confront assumptions we bring to portrayal and self-portrayal. It can reduce the distances between “us” and “them” at a time when political forces try to take advantage of the human tendency to erase what doesn’t appear to fit. ■

Kali Spitzer’s Bodies Of, Bodies Within is on now through March 17, 2024 at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.

The 2023 Sobey Art Award Exhibition is on now through March 3, 2024 at the National Gallery of Canada.

The 2023 Scotiabank New Generation Photography Award is on now through Jan. 7, 2024 at the National Gallery of Canada.

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