Queer Formalism: The Return

by William J. Simmons

From the author of Love and Degradation: Excessive Desires in Queer-Feminist Art (Penn State University Press, 2024).

A new kind of queer writing.

Artists addressed in Queer Formalism: The Return include: Sally Mann, David Lynch, Lars von Trier, Math Bass, Lorna Simpson, Laurie Simmons, Alex Prager, Lana Del Rey, Jessica Lange, and Louise Lawler, among others.

Queer Formalism: The Return is the first installment in the Critic's Essay Series published by Floating Opera Press. Comprising long-form essays, this series gives voice to critics who offer thought-provoking ways in which to subvert or replace normative modes of discussing culture.

William J. Simmons is also the author of Love and Degradation: Excessive Desires in Queer-Feminist Art (Penn State University Press, 2024).

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer, Art

88 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2022

About the author

William J. Simmons is the author of Love and Degradation: Excessive Desires in Queer-Feminist Art (2024) and Queer Formalism: The Return (2021).

Reviews

[Mack]

gossip is essential to queer history and all discourse is autobiography

i’m gonna rewatch Melancholia now

[Glen Helfand]

"All discourse is autobiography." !!!

[Finn Clements]

this was my first time dipping into art criticism but maybe it’s something i should do more often

[Sally Weltner]

Some great lines I got a lot out of

[Macartney]

Blargh

[menschorama]

i think i will have to read some of these chapters a few more times to really get them but i liked this a lot! obviously i love anything theorizing about lana and melodrama and loved the part about greer lankton’s dolls not being made to be ugly but that they’re people in her life who just happen to be freaks and that it was all a work of love :’)

[Grac]

read this over a long period time so my memory of the whole thing is a bit messed up. but i really enjoyed it. something very refreshing about a theorist critiquing themselves as they analyze. makes it more engaging. some really beautiful writing as well, and I enjoy Simmons’ different forms of perception. Now I have to go back and read his first queer formalism notes.

[nicole]

beautiful and interiguing ideas on formalism, art history and what could be considered queer. the fave part of the book is still the introductory chapter, i'm all for the celebration of queer identity without it being a sob fest <333

[Ivy Rockmore]

ALL DISCOURSE IS AUTOBIOGRAPHY!! rly insightful to follow Simmons’ art historical rabbit hole. I feel like I’ve left the experience of reading with more questions than answers which is definitely a good thing.

[linds836]

https://bigredandshiny.org/2929/notes...