The Queer and Angry Manifesto

How art creates and imparts meaning is fascinating. People create an image with a certain point of view or an attempt to get an idea across and push it out into the world with no way of knowing if their creation will be perceived how they wished. The most interesting of art to me is the diptych, two images meant to be viewed together. They were common in medieval and early modern art. By combining and contrasting two works together, meaning is created from the interaction of the two. Viewing one on their own would inherently make each less meaningful, only together can both be truly understood.

This does not just have to be paintings or illustrations. Works such as Denis Villeneuve’s Dune duology would also fit. Each can be viewed separately, and stand alone well enough, but they both are missing something without the context of the other. The nature of the release of the films necessitated a gap in viewing for the keenest of fans yet they both are in discussion with each other. Diptychs can be used to tell a singular story over two parts or be two separate stories that none the less benefit from being viewed together. Studio TRIGGER’s SSSS.Gridman and SSSS.Dynazenon are a fantastic example of this, where there are overlapping elements such as kaiju and two characters, yet the stories being told are different. There is still much to be gained from viewing the two as a kind of one.

The idea of diptychs is foundational to how I view art. I create meaning through the comparison of works and find it impossible to do otherwise. I believe no one work can stand on its own and should be considered through other works or ideas that influenced it, as well as works that come from a similar lineage, or works that arrived at similar places despite differences. This blog project will be filled with comparisons and looking at works where an idea was successful alongside works that failed. I believe a lot can be learned by viewing art pieces together and forming a diptych on one’s own. Using the creation of a diptych as a prism to better see a work as it was constructed and better detail how I feel about it.

The posts will range from all types of topics; however, I will try to keep each to a discussion about art in one form or another. As a queer woman, that perspective will be my guiding principle throughout the blogs as well. So please join me on this attempt to improve my thinking and writing skills by doing more of both. Signing up isn’t required to read anything but will allow you to comment and sign up for the newsletter to be notified when I post. It will also make my day.