Betraying Authority Zine by Yvonne LeBien and Genderfail Press
“‘Betraying Authority: fragments on queer poetry/art’ is an essay by Yvonne LeBien. First notes on trying to move into a more embodied process of evoking queer experience. The whole fetish for an authoritative voice ends up undermining the actual radical possibilities of queer life. How long can we keep fetishizing and commodifying transgressive experiences, repackaging them as radical content and shipping them as marketable products? I don’t want to kill trees just so I can establish myself as an official POET. Embracing the failure to establish authority. Dismantling the entire structure of macho-individualist self-expression. Are we changing academia, or is it changing us? How can we discover, not just our own stories, but our own storytelling?” - GenderFail Press
7” x 5”
*This item is eligible for a 10% membership discount.
“‘Betraying Authority: fragments on queer poetry/art’ is an essay by Yvonne LeBien. First notes on trying to move into a more embodied process of evoking queer experience. The whole fetish for an authoritative voice ends up undermining the actual radical possibilities of queer life. How long can we keep fetishizing and commodifying transgressive experiences, repackaging them as radical content and shipping them as marketable products? I don’t want to kill trees just so I can establish myself as an official POET. Embracing the failure to establish authority. Dismantling the entire structure of macho-individualist self-expression. Are we changing academia, or is it changing us? How can we discover, not just our own stories, but our own storytelling?” - GenderFail Press
7” x 5”
*This item is eligible for a 10% membership discount.
“‘Betraying Authority: fragments on queer poetry/art’ is an essay by Yvonne LeBien. First notes on trying to move into a more embodied process of evoking queer experience. The whole fetish for an authoritative voice ends up undermining the actual radical possibilities of queer life. How long can we keep fetishizing and commodifying transgressive experiences, repackaging them as radical content and shipping them as marketable products? I don’t want to kill trees just so I can establish myself as an official POET. Embracing the failure to establish authority. Dismantling the entire structure of macho-individualist self-expression. Are we changing academia, or is it changing us? How can we discover, not just our own stories, but our own storytelling?” - GenderFail Press
7” x 5”
*This item is eligible for a 10% membership discount.
GenderFail is an imperfect publishing platform that looks at various forms of failure - from personal, public, and political perspectives - as a boundless form of creative potential. For GenderFail, we seek to publish works that expand queer subjectivity by looking at work that pushes against a capitalist, racist, ableist, xenophobic, transphobic, homophobic, misogynistic, and anti-environmental ideology. GenderFail is fueled by the messiness of collaboration, education, and community to continue to push our goals of failing forward. GenderFail embraces failure as a site of cultural production. With GenderFail, the project has published work by 30 artists including Jesse Harrod, Sable Elyse Smith, Anthony Icacono, Liz Barr, Lex Brown, Alok Vaid-Menon, American Artist, Demian Dineyazhi and many others.
GenderFail has been apart of exhibitions, programs and events at MoMA PS1, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Williams College Museum of Art, The International Center of Photography, Wendy's Subway, Sediment Arts, Vox Populi, EFA Project Space, Book culture (apart of the Contemporary Artists' Books Conference), Washington Center for the Arts, Ulises Books, Anderson Gallery, and After School Special. GenderFail publications can be found in the library collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Center for Book Arts and many others.
GenderFail is currently working out of the Bushwick Neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY.
