Meyer, a scholar of 20th-century American art history and the Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor in Art History at Stanford, co-authored Art and Queer Culture, the most comprehensive survey of queer art in the 19th and 20th centuries.Ĭo-authored with retired University of California, Irvine, artist and critic Catherine Lord, the book traces a dialogue between visual images and queer culture, including but not limited to high art, and homosexual culture from 1885 to the present. Whether in art or in mass media, such images convey universal emotion, while also drawing power from their ability to shock.Īs such, Meyer argues that pictures of same-sex kissing and other homoerotic imagery demonstrate in a uniquely clear manner the interdependence of all art within its social context. In making formerly private content public, such scenes "help to create queer culture by generating alternative images of – and possibilities for – love and intimacy," says Meyer. News coverage of recent milestones in gay rights routinely includes images of happy same-sex couples kissing in celebration.īut according to Stanford art historian Richard Meyer, visuals of same-sex kisses and other gay images do much more than illustrate happy moments.
Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University. George Segal's 'Gay Liberation' sculpture.