Reading Response #2

This reading from BOMB magazine discusses the politics of race within the contemporary art world. Gutierrez reflects upon his experience as a queer Latinx choreographer in a prominently white dance world. The article begins as the author reflects upon a time when he was sitting across from his "hot" professor of his Post-Structuralist Literary Theory--Gay and Lesbian Literature class. He explains to the professor that his parents disapprove of his lifestyle, but divorcing his family was not an option since he comes from a Colombian background. Gutierrez then continues to reflect on times where he has attended other artists' events all around the world that also discuss race within the art world. He thinks about how people of color, women, queer individuals, etc. are portrayed from an outside perspective and what kind of image that creates. The part that stuck out to me the most was when Gutierrez said, "I am at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with my new boyfriend. We’ve come to see the William Eggleston show. As we walk through the museum, I think about what sort of picture we make. He is young, skinny, black. I am older, thick, ethnically ambiguous. I think about what people, my friends, or even I myself think about our age difference, about our differences in general." This stuck out to me because of how two normal people have to walk around in fear of what others might think of them. Everyone else's subjectives are normalized, but because Gutierrez and his boyfriend are of different ethnicities, ages, and stature, they feel as if they are being watched everywhere they go. When Gutierrez looks at a piece of art, he sees the world in which he longs to belong to. He feels that people considered "minorities" are constricted by society's social norms and wonders when he will feel free of this and, so to speak, where this feeling of acceptance goes when it's not in a frame.