PhD candidate Cyle Metzger publishes first issue of the Journal of Visual Culture dedicated to transgender art
Cyle Metzger, PhD candidate in art history, and Kirstin Ringelberg, professor of art history at Elon University, together organized, edited, and composed the introduction to the first issue of the Journal of Visual Culture (Volume 19, Issue 2) dedicated to transgender art and visual culture.
In “Prismatic views: a look at the growing field of transgender art and visual culture studies,” Metzger and Ringelberg provide context for the collection of essays that follow, including studies on “Marie Høeg’s worldmaking photography,” David Antonio Cruz’s “portrait of the florida girls,” Potassa de Lafayette, and much more.
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Abstract:
Transgender art and visual culture studies is a quickly growing field, and we present it to readers of this themed issue less as a linear discourse or a set of parameters than as a prism, with no clear temporal progression or geopolitical center.
In this introduction, we not only announce the articles in this issue and discuss their convergences and divergences, but also survey works in transgender studies that have proven critical to discussions of the visual and material within transgender cultures.
Reading what follows, we hope any shared notion of transgender art and visual culture is expanded rather than contracted—that we find new ideas rather than merely those that reconfirm our existing sense of things or serve a monolithic construct that limits our future imaginary.
Image: David Antonio Cruz, inmysleeplesssolitudetonight, portrait of the florida girls, 2019. Oil and enamel on wood, 48 x 72 inches.