Derek Jarman, AIDS, and rhetoric

Ellis Morgan

Advisor: Dr. Michael Charlesworth

Abstract

In the years of 1992 and 1993, the British multimedia artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman produced his final paintings, an incisive commentary on the rhetoric surrounding the AIDS crisis rendered in visual form, utilizing rough, painterly brushwork atop of copy-pasted newspaper headlines. These paintings combine expressive brushwork with a witty usage of language to comment on and dismantle the rhetoric of homophobic bigotry that was present within media coverage of the AIDS crisis.

Jarman’s approach to this commentary had firm roots within queerness and queer culture, shown in his emotionality and his language. These works reflect an aspect of queer culture that takes the rhetoric of hatred and strips it of power using cheeky humor and an irrepressible demand for equality in all things.