Paul Clinton
Paul Clinton investigates how the politics of sexuality and gender have shaped contemporary art practice.
Staff details
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Prior to my post at Goldsmiths I was for five years an Associate Editor at Frieze magazine, editing and commissioning writing on art and culture across the globe. Alongside that I have worked as a cultural critic, with a particular focus on queer politics and visual art, which led me to be recognised as Royal Academy Schools Critic In Residence 2019-21. My writing has appeared in publications including Art Monthly, ArtReview, frieze, Numeró, Mousse and the London Review of Books, and catalogues published by Hayward Gallery, Vienna Secession, Kunstmuseum Basel amongst others. Invitations to speak include at Steadelschule, Frankfurt, University of Edinburgh, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Whitechapel Gallery and Tate Modern, London. Curatorial projects include: Duh? Art and Stupidity, Focal Point Gallery, Forbidden To Forbid, Goswell Road, Paris, Limp, Galerie Emanuel Layr, Vienna, Militant Desire at LUX/Gasworks, London.My current research looks at the relationship between desire and agency.
Academic qualifications
- PhD Art History And Visual Cultures (ABD) 2013
- MA Contemporary Art Theory, Goldsmiths 2007
- BA Art History And Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths 2003
Research interests
I have worked on a broad spectrum of projects, most with a focus on queer culture, writing practices and more recently on artist's moving image. This research has resulted in exhibitions, essays and talks on topics such as: class exclusion in queer culture; the role class has played in how British artists have played with gender; the relationship between earlier gay liberation movements and later queer theory on the question of child sexuality; spectacle and exoticism in the display of art dealing in queer sexuality; histories of activist queer cinema and their exclusions, amongst other topics. My current research looks at:
- Queer art and theory
- Agency and liberation movements.
- Taste, sophistication, trash and vulgarity in relation to class and sexuality.
- Politics of transgression
- Intersections of class and queer politics
- Performativity, anecdote and other experimental varieties of critical writing
- Artist's moving image
Featured publications
2023:
Disgusting Dwoskin: Disability, Agency and Sexual Disgust in Stephen Dwoskin's The Sun And The Moon
Book Chapter
2023:
Lionel Soukaz: A Proto-Queer Cinema
Peer Review Essay, MIRAJ Journal
2021:
AA Bronson: Revolutionary Asshole
AA Bronson's House of Shame: Monograph
2019:
The Trouble With Not Normal
Conference Paper
Grants and awards
2023:
Research Allowance: Department of Art
Funding for research in archives in New York, Los Angeles as well as in the studios of Nayland Blake and Richard Hawkins.
Publications and research outputs
Book Section
- AA Bronson: Revolutionary Asshole Clinton, Paul. 2021. AA Bronson: Revolutionary Asshole. In: Vincent Simon, ed. AA Bronson's House of Shame. Zurich, Switzerland: Editions Patrick Frey. ISBN 9783907236314
- Useless Man Clinton, Paul. 2019. Useless Man. In: , ed. Kiss My Genders (exhibition catalogue, Hayward Gallery, 12th June 2019). London, UK: Hayward Publishing, pp. 34-39. ISBN 9781853323645
Article
- Dissent at the Disco Clinton, Paul. 2019. Dissent at the Disco. Frieze, ISSN 0962-0672
- Activists’s Subversion of ‘I’m Too Sexy To Have AIDS’ Slogan Does Queer History a Disservice Clinton, Paul. 2018. Activists’s Subversion of ‘I’m Too Sexy To Have AIDS’ Slogan Does Queer History a Disservice. Frieze, ISSN 0962-0672
Exhibition Catalogue
- ‘Weird Fucks’, Trojan Horse/Rainbow Flag, ed. Ian Giles/Paul Clinton, published: VideoClub, UK; HOME, Manchester; Baltic Gateshead; Gasworks, London. Clinton, Paul and Giles, Ian. 2019. ‘Weird Fucks’, Trojan Horse/Rainbow Flag, ed. Ian Giles/Paul Clinton, published: VideoClub, UK; HOME, Manchester; Baltic Gateshead; Gasworks, London..
Show/Exhibition
- LIMP: Frustrations in the Circulation of Queer Imagery', curated by Paul Clinton, Galerie Emanuel Layr/Curated.by, Vienna, Austria Clinton, Paul. 2019. LIMP: Frustrations in the Circulation of Queer Imagery', curated by Paul Clinton, Galerie Emanuel Layr/Curated.by, Vienna, Austria. In: "LIMP", Galerie Emanuel Layr, Vienna, Austria, 13th September - 31st October 2019.
- Militant Desire: Lionel Soukaz and Gay Liberation Today, curated by Paul Clinton at Gasworks and Lux Artist's Moving Image, London. Plus publication. Clinton, Paul. 2019. Militant Desire: Lionel Soukaz and Gay Liberation Today, curated by Paul Clinton at Gasworks and Lux Artist's Moving Image, London. Plus publication.. In: "Militant Desire: Lionel Soukaz and Gay Liberation Today", Gasworks, London, United Kingdom, 29 May - 27 June 2019.
- Forbidden to Forbid: A Reader, ed. Paul Clinton, pub. Galerie Balice Hertling/Goswell Road; Forbidden to Forbid, the exhibition, curated by Paul Clinton, Galerie Balice Hertling/Goswell Road, Paris Clinton, Paul. 2018. Forbidden to Forbid: A Reader, ed. Paul Clinton, pub. Galerie Balice Hertling/Goswell Road; Forbidden to Forbid, the exhibition, curated by Paul Clinton, Galerie Balice Hertling/Goswell Road, Paris. In: "Forbidden to Forbid", Galerie Balice Hertling, Paris, France, 31 May – 14 July 2018.
Other
- Homo Ludens Clinton, Paul. 2019. Homo Ludens. Lismore Castle Arts, IMMA, Dublin.
- Ulrike Ottinger: Ticket of No Return, MOUSSE, June 2018 Clinton, Paul. 2018. Ulrike Ottinger: Ticket of No Return, MOUSSE, June 2018. Mousse Publishing.
Professional projects
Exhibitions:
- Sexuality Of A Nation: Lionel Soukaz and Sexual Liberation, EVA Biennial, Limerick
- Militant Desire: Lionel Soukaz and Sexual Liberation, Gasworks/LUX, London
- LIMP, Galerie Emanuel Layr, Vienna
- duh? Art & Stupidity, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-On-Sea
- Stupidious, South London Gallery, London
Media engagements
2017:
Queer British Art: A Financial Times Live Discussion
A roundtable on Queer British Art with Claire Barlow, Francesco Ventrella and myself.