JARMAN, Derek. QUEER. Manchester: Manchester City Galleries. 1992.
4to. Red and white wrappers with dark red title lettering to front wrapper; unpaginated; fine.
Signed first edition catalogue from Derek Jarman's 1992 exhibition Queer accompanied by insightful commentary and designed by Jeffrey Horsley.
"I painted these pictures fast and loose." writes Derek Jarman in a preface to this work, an introductory fragment entitled Affirming my life (March, 1992). Published in conjuction with Jarman's 1992 exhibition at Manchester City Art Galleries, Queer Painting, this series stands in bold compliment with his lifelong championing of the arts and pioneering of new sexual politics. Derek Jarman was diagnosed as HIV in 1986 and as the artist himself exposes, "Every artist paints about their experience, and I'm afraid my experience was the HIV virus". Simon Watney reviews the compilation as such, "Working over and on top of the hate-filled surfaces of the British tabloid press … his paintings draw attention to the phobic abxieties which inform so much press coverage". In this way, Jarman deploys painting as a public means to counter anti-gay predjuduce within a public forum- a vulnerable and powerful call to action amidst the hysteria provoked by the AIDS crisis.
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