For hundreds of years, queer history has been hidden in plain sight, its artists casting their gazes in a myriad of ways, encoded in our constructs of beauty, desire, status, and wealth. Photography’s arrival in 1839 signalled a remarkable shift, placing the power of image-making in the hands of the people rather than the establishment. For those driven to create, visibility quickly became an act of resistance against misrepresentation, marginalisation, and erasure.
Thinking about questions like “how do we find queer community?” and “how do we find our history?” Zorian Clayton, Curator of Prints at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, delved into the collection to create Calling the Shots: A Queer History of Photography (Thames & Hudson). Taking the words of photographer Catherine Opie as its departure point – “I will wave a rainbow flag proudly, but I am not a single identity” – Calling the Shots is a nod to inclusivity in its many-splendored forms.
Drawn from the monumental photography collection at the V&A, the book features a wealth of works made by and about LGBTQIA+ communities worldwide. Organised across six thematic chapters (Icons, Staged, Body, Liberty, Making a Scene, and Beyond the Frame), Calling the Shots explores the intersections of photography, identity, image making, and activism in the work of groundbreaking artists including Robert Mapplethorpe, Zanele Muholi, Liz Johnson Artur, Sunil Gupta, Mariette Pathy Allen, and Leonard Fink.
