Dragging Away: Queer Abstraction in Contemporary Art

In Dragging Away Lex Morgan Lancaster traces the formal and material innovations of contemporary queer and feminist artists, showing how they use abstraction as a queering tactic for social and political ends. Through a process Lancaster theorizes as a drag--dragging past aesthetics into the present and reworking them while pulling their work away from direct representation--these artists reimagine midcentury forms of abstraction and expose the violence of the tendency to reduce abstract form to a bodily sign or biographical symbolism. Lancaster outlines how the geometric enamel objects, grid paintings, vibrant color, and expansive installations of artists ranging from Ulrike Müller, Nancy Brooks Brody, and Lorna Simpson to Linda Besemer, Sheila Pepe, and Shinique Smith offer direct challenges to representational and categorical legibility. In so doing, Lancaster demonstrates that abstraction is not apolitical, neutral, or universal; it is a form of social praxis that actively contributes to queer, feminist, critical race, trans, and crip politics.

Author: Lex Morgan Lancaster
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 11/11/2022
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.50d
ISBN13: 9781478018674
ISBN10: 1478018674
BISAC Categories:
- Art | History | Contemporary (1945- )
- Art | Criticism & Theory
- Social Science | LGBTQ+ Studies | General

About the Author
Lex Morgan Lancaster is Assistant Professor of Art History and Gallery Director at the University of South Carolina Upstate.