Evading Stereotypes With Fine Art Image Maker Diogo Duarte.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Artist Diogo Duarte, exploring the portrayal of mystery in the artistic setting of cruising grounds. His work has a supernatural feel, and I’m fascinated by his presentation of such via the medium of tarot cards. Intrigued, I was eager to find out more about Diogo and his involvement in the Round Lemon’s ‘SHOUT’ Exhibition.
‘Queer Desire Oracle’ (2021-present)
Diogo introduced himself explaining his initial involvement in the X SHOUT exhibition:
“So I submitted my Queer Desire Oracle to the show, which is part of a bigger body of work I am doing as part of my MA project at the Glasgow School of Art. It’s looking into cruising grounds and seeing how they can be interpreted as queer sex utopias. Essentially, I have visited a lot of cruising grounds and taken photographs, sound and video recordings with the view to find out what happens there. It obviously raises more questions than it provides answers, in fact, it answers none - but I suppose that is the point. I’m very much interested in capturing the potential of these spaces and so far, the Oracle is one way of doing that as I’m also intersecting gay cruising with witchcraft and the occult.”
He further told me about the range of different media he has and is working with:
“I have other pieces of work I have done which I am using to capture the many dimensions of the cruising ground. I have wax castings, maps and a film which is still being shot.”
From this initial introduction, I explored Edinburgh-based Diogo Duarte’s work in further depth and thoroughly enjoyed chatting via email about the artwork he had shared with me.
For the exhibition, you had to make an artwork which responded to one of the 'Digital Shout Out’ Videos made by SHOUT and Round Lemon - In which you chose William Shoal’s ‘Personal Symbolism and Queer Art’. What is it about this video that inspired you?
I am very much interested in queer symbolism, and also how symbolism in general can be used in the arts as a form of expression. Looking back at my all my work, it’s clear to me that hidden aspects of my personality and identity regularly came out in artworks via symbolism, which makes me think of William Shoal’s words around safety. Symbols can play a huge part in keeping oneself safe when things are still being ‘worked out’ or in a process of ‘figuring out’ - that’s definitely the purpose they served in my work. I didn’t feel safe to articulate some ideas so I tried to communicate with the queer community in this way; Which is not to say I don’t use symbols nowadays, symbols are of course everywhere, it’s just that I use them with a different purpose now.
I think this also explains my interest and fascination with the occult as a discipline, which as the word implies, it relates to anything that is occult, i.e. mystical, ‘hidden’ or between worlds. It’s a wonderful analogy for queerness.
Explain further about how your represent queerness through your work.
I have a lot of fun and draw a lot of pleasure from the concept of queerness. Its appeal to me comes from its fundamental refusal to be pinned down or defined, something that is constantly out of grasp and in the future. This ethereal nature of the word ‘queerness’ is what led me to intersect cruising grounds where men have sex with men with witchcraft, magic and the occult in general. We are all familiar with societal views and the media's views of the cruising ground: they are places where the abjection of gay sex plays out, places of trauma where gay men get killed, robbed and raped and have their dignity stolen from. Everyone knows the narrative around George Michael. But what I am interested in is to take the cruising ground further into a place of mysticism, not to romanticise it, but to complexify it. I hope that my work facilitates the generation of endless alternative narratives about what happens in public sex places, the people who move in and out of them as well as through them.
My Queer Desire Oracle and the materials I have chosen for this body of work (e.g. wax castings) are all things that I hope embody this refusal to be categorised as something. Packs of cards can be used for many things - divination, playing, gambling, praying, etc. Even though envisioned as an oracle, I have provided no instructions on how to use it or how to formulate questions, one can interact with them however one wants. As the interpreter of the oracle, each card’s meaning changes from day to day and what I’m feeling in the moment. My wax castings of course imply melting, dripping, softness and hardness and the changeable nature of wax and its multiple uses. They are castings of objects found in cruising grounds and the soft wax castings were created from hard plaster casts which I think is a very nice play on the binary interpretations of cruising.
I have been researching more into the practices of the occult. Is the occult something that should be more prominent in society? I.e. does it broaden society’s view of the reality of the world as a discipline (as art does)?
My experience as a Portuguese national who grew up in Portugal, is that the occult was everywhere. My childhood was surrounded by women 'down the road' who’d ’take your evil eye away’ and the someone who knew someone who could ‘cast a spell for you’ or ‘read your palm'. I grew up with family members casually and frequently consulting tarot readers and mediums, albeit always in secret. I was privy to these conversations because I was a child and as a child it’s as though people think you can’t understand what they’re saying, almost like you’re invisible. As far as I’m concerned, it was pretty much prominent where I came from and it continues to be so. Like cruising, however, there’s a stigma attached to it so I wonder if it’s simply the fact that it isn’t open for everyone to see that makes us think it isn’t prominent. I went to LA a few years ago and was surprised to see how many neon signs there were for palm readers, mediums and tarot readers. It seemed much more acceptable. I think there’s a believe that if you’re into any of this that you’re a bit ‘dim’. I also keep discovering parallels between cruising and the occult. My straight friends would have no idea their local B&Q, for example, is probably heaving with men looking for sex. We just need to pay attention to what’s hidden and we'd probably find superstition and the occult have a place in our friends lives in some shape or another, we just don’t know about it.
To answer your second question, I think the occult absolutely does broaden one’s view of reality and the world! I also think of it as a resistance to capitalism. It’s not transactional in the same way (although it can be) and it resists rationality, it resists logic and draws attention to what’s inside of you and how you connect with others and the world in creative ways. I have little interest in a 100% science driven world. Of course there’s the argument that magic and the occult is merely what science hasn’t been able to explain yet but - as you can probably predict - I am going to say that’s reductive and probably is said by someone who hasn’t truly dwelled into occult reading and experience.
I can’t help but to respond to your reference to George Michael: are his lyrics and video to the single ‘Outside’ an inspiration to, as you say, ‘complexify’ further?
What a great comeback that was huh? It’s a brilliant video and so inspirational. I have no idea how he survived all the media attention but the fact is he did and he’ll remain an inspiration for generations to come. I was too young to remember but only as recently as 2021 have I been able to say it out loud that I love cruising. How crazy is that? My inspiration to complexify it further really just came from my need to deconstruct my behaviours and the thoughts I had about cruising. I was carrying this horrendous weight and just had enough of it, it was affecting my mental health, which then pushed me towards the question ‘Hey, what is it that you’re doing? Where is this shame coming from? Let’s really think about this!’. I processed it through art, therapy, and art as therapy.
I especially like your deck of cards format. Is tarot reading of interest? Personally and/or artistically?
I’ve always been interested in divination from a very young age. I’ve dabbled, but I’m not so interested in this anymore in the strict understanding of Tarot. That is not to say that whenever I pick up my Queer Desire Oracle and do a reading for someone that it is faux, dishonest or ‘pretend’. It isn’t. I’m still actively listening, actively engaged and present and responding intuitively to the cards that present themselves on the table. Is that faux? There’s also a whole set of ethics one has to consider when doing a reading and that is as real for me as it is for any tarot reader. I most definitely want to blend performance with oracle readings…the great thing about my deck is that its applications are endless in a variety of settings. I want to explore these!
I’m also going to say that cruising is a lot like a tarot reading. It’s anxiety provoking, you don’t know what’ll happen - the possibilities are endless. Sometimes you get good news, sometimes you don’t. Sometime you leave and you didn’t cum (from cruising not from a tarot reading!). They both require an openness and a presence and an acknowledgement that you don’t really know how to play the game but you’re gonna go for the ride anyway because it’s just too thrilling. Well, for some people.
‘Queer Desire Oracle’ (2021-present)
DH Lawrence said: ‘If you try to nail anything down in the novel, either it kills the novel, or the novel gets up and walks away with the nail.’ I thoroughly believe this: do you think the ‘unpinnable’ is of artistic importance?
I love the idea of a novel getting up and walking away with the nail. I couldn’t agree more. Literality doesn’t speak much to me, it’s not my experience of myself or the world. Isn’t just about anything ‘unpinnable’? In a way I could say that there was no other way to explore cruising artistically other than by making it unpinnable. Fundamentally, I don’t think it can be totally understood, it’s alive and it has a life of its own. Cruising grounds shape shift from day to day, they are never the same. Any attempt at making it pinnacle is not merely simplistic, it’s impossible.
