Ben Redhead is a writer originally from Leeds, who has lived a third of his life in Glasgow, and is now based in Marseille. He has previously had work published...
Don’t be gay : J.D.s (1985-1991)
Curated by Hugo Bausch Belbachir
16.12.2022 – 14.02.2022
Giselle’s Books · Marseille
In a text Bruce LaBruce sent to me, he recounts how he was hit in the face by an English man with a mohawk in the beginning of the 1980s, whilst he was out with a group of sissycore friends. Five years later, J.D.’s (for Juvenile Delinquents) was co-founded in Toronto by Bruce LaBruce and G.B. Jones.
Independently initiated by artists, sex workers, authors, and anonymous individuals close to the local punk movements, J.D.’s intervened as the first printed matter that belonged to a persistent movement; Homocore. Promptly rethought as Queercore, the zine provided a space for radical, pornographic queer literature and iconography to operate and allowed a forgotten generation – decimated by the AIDS epidemic – to develop a politico-structural criticism towards its own limits.
J.D.’s was a revenge.
— Hugo Bausch Belbachir
Don’t be gay : J.D.s (1985-1991) is the first retrospective exhibition on J.D.s in France. Formulated as an anthology, the project is curated by Hugo Bausch Belbachir.
Dans un texte que Bruce LaBruce m’a envoyé, il raconte s’être fait frapper au visage par un Anglais portant un Mohawk au début de l’année 1980, alors qu’il était accompagné par un groupe d’amixs sissycore. Cinq ans plus tard, J.D.s (pour Juvenile Delinquents) est co-fondé à Toronto par Bruce LaBruce et G.B. Jones.
Constitué en autonomie par des artistes, des travailleurxs du sexe, des auteurxs et des anonymes proches des mouvements punks locaux, J.D.’s intervient alors comme la première production imprimée d’un mouvement persistant; l’Homocore. S’il est rapidement repensé pour le terme Queercore et s’initie comme un espace d’exploitation radicale d’iconographie et de littérature pornographique queer, il permet à une génération oubliée -décimée par l’épidémie du Sida – de constituer une critique politico-structurelle sur ses propres limites. J.D.s était une revanche.
— Hugo Bausch Belbachir
Don’t be gay : J.D.s (1985-1991) est la première exposition de retrospective autour de J.D.s en France. Pensée comme un projet d’anthologie, elle est organisée par Hugo Bausch Belbachir.
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