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Nicolas VamvouklisCollecting Queerly22.3.2017

The process of accumulation and its close relationship with the iden-tity of the collector is the focus of Nicolas Vamvouklis’ research: Collecting Queerly. Here present-ed in the form of a weekly log, this research explores gay identities and identifications as they are com-municated in and through art and provides a critical approach to the study of collectors. Starting from historical imagery depicting collec-tors and their possessions, the log will then outline the turbulent ex-istence of the Greek collector and gallerist Alexandre Iolas, the rela-tionship with his collection and the villa which housed it. Archive mate-rials will be gathered together and discussed from a contemporary perspective, in order to set a new layer in the field of queer studies. Questioning the very nature and definition of collecting, Vamvouklis underlines how the act itself, rather than the collected items, is keen to become an object of veneration.

Born in Lesvos Island (Greece) Nicolas Vamvouklis lives between Milan and Athens. He is a cura-torial fellow at FABRICA, the communication research centre of Benetton Group. His artistic and curatorial practice encompasses interdisciplinary thinking over equally the performing and visual arts. Working with installation, performance and exhibition-mak-ing he positions the body in the centre of the human evolution where corporeality retracts mem-ories, creates cohesions and pro-duces knowledge over conjoining spacialities. His research interests include among others participa-tory art, reinterpreting collections and the history of artist-curated exhibitions.

nicolasvamvouklis.tumblr.com

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1. DESIRE

Everything said from the angle of a real collector is whimsical.— Walter Benjamin

Do you masturbate to your collection?No. Almost never.

Really?No. Even if the collection is erotic for me on some level, I don’t collect things because they turn me on. I probably would not buy most of these pictures if I didn’t find the men in them attractive, but it doesn’t become a masturbatory focus.— Vince Aletti interviewed by Adam Baran for BUTT #26

Curiosity is a vice that has been stigmatised in turn by Christianity, by philosophy, and even by a certain conception of science. Curiosity, futility. The word, however, pleases me.— Michel Foucault

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Frans Francken II, Kunst- und Raritätenkammer, 1636

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Frans Francken II, Kunst- und Raritätenkammer, 1636, detail

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2. COUP DE FOUDRE

Queer is fluid.*

The last decade, an increasing number of institutions including among others the Museum of London, the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven address systematically issues related to the application of queer perspectives to the experience of the museum space, the display of art as well as the nature and definition of collecting.

The ongoing exhibition Expanded Visions: Fifty Years of Collecting (March–May, 2017) at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art showcases a comprehensive overview of its co-founders’ collection. Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman have searched for images of queerness in art history since 1969 accumulating more than 30,000 objects and artworks.

They started collecting and exhibiting art in their SoHo loft with the idea to provide an outlet for living gay artists. Moreover, they managed to preserve a unique corpus of works that would have otherwise been lost forever during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, when the families of the dying artists and collectors started to throw away or destroy their belongings.

According to the writer Kevin Clarke, Leslie has the biggest phallus-related collection in the world whereas the couple’s efforts to foster queer artistic practice would lead to the formation of a non-profit foundation, a huge archive that became the first major LGBTQ art museum based in New York.

* https://vanabbemuseum.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/ Queer_GLossary_2016_print_spreads.pdf

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Peter Hujar, Paul Thek on Zebra, 1965, Leslie-Lohman Museum Collection

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From The Art of Looking: The Life and Treasures of Collector Charles Leslie (2014) by Kevin ClarkeIn the centre: Marion Pinto, Portrait of Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman, 1974

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