Re-reading and Re-visiting the Museum: some gender and queer appropriationism in Spanish art from the eighties to the present

Abstract

One of the most well-known; studied and popularized practices of the “postmodern” era in the artistic and visual territory has been the so-called “appropriationist” technique. Usually read as a question of the traditional figures of the unique work; the “genius” related to the authorship of the work and the auratized art object; some of the best known works on the subject have opened the discussion towards questions of identity and of political and biographical subjects that exceed the preaching of any possible “postmodern” style. In the present article; we have chosen some works made in the Spanish State whose iconographic source was taken from the collection of the Prado Museum; eternal source point of Spanish culture. The presence of images taken from the pinacoteca with a direction specifically oriented towards questions of gender and identity within queer theory and practice; will serve us to observe the role of the Museum as a legitimating space for speeches; the possibility of creation of counter-hegemonic stories and “counter-readings” through visual practices that revisit their collection; as well as; ultimately; to observe how it is possible that these dissenting narratives on gender; identity and sexuality; could have a greater relevance in the introduction of the museum´s own paradigms.