Queer in the Museum: Methodological Reflections on Doing Queer in Museum Collections

Based on his own experience as a curator, from observations made during the summer of 2008 in Sweden, and the work of various researchers, art historian Patrik Steorn formulates a queer critique of the museum, which not only allows us to consider a greater multitude of sexualities and genres (homo-, bi-, trans-), but also to denounce the heteronormativity of existing views, discourses and practices; queer is not only about identity, it is also an analytical tool to critique this identity. He starts from a rather simple observation : that the criteria relating to sexualities (straight-, gay-, bi-, trans-) is missing in the databases of museum collections that he studies and explains how these research criteria extend the established categories and produce meaning as to the (uncomplete and partial) way of seeing and wanting to show the museum.