Pleasures Against Nature
Encounter a new site-specific installation from one of Australia’s most exciting contemporary artists, Paul Yore. Taking its title from an expression found in 18th and 19th century discourses condemning gay sex, specifically the act of sodomy, Pleasures Against Nature brashly and unapologetically re-centres radical and emancipatory queer expression against the backdrop of dehumanising neo-liberalism and the extreme materialism of dead-end capitalism.
Comprising mixed media assemblage, found objects, sound, video, kinetic sculptures, collage, lights and water fountains, Yore’s anarchic and anti-formalist approach to materials and content rubs uncomfortably up against the paternalism of mainstream politics that seeks to homogenise and delimit the real-life experiences of queer people. Pleasures Against Nature seeks to examine and illuminate what radical queer politics can be, negating polite appeals to heteronormative respectability and instead positing a resistance to categorisation itself.