I’m not sure what’s more exciting about DuoVision’s retrospective of 90s queer club culture; the culture itself or the process of its documentation. It’s a beautiful exhibition, packed out with the celebration of 90s clubs in London and the North West, but the fact these images are here at all is a testament to how we used to function.
At the risk of sounding thirty years older than I am, back then, documenting our lives with photographs held more value. We weren’t as used to the ease of camera phones, so every picture counted for something.
I’d spend the morning after a night out pulling photos off an SD card and uploading them to Myspace in the noughties. Through the nineties it was largely a mix of massive DSLRs, point-and-shoots and disposable cameras. So every image in this exhibition is worth existing, and it kind of doesn’t matter whether they’re by professional photographers or club goers. The fact they exist for us to see now is a statement of pride that the clubs existed, and pride in the culture they embedded.
James Lawler and Martin Green, who have led DuoVision since 2010, have exhibited across Liverpool and London since they started curating the works of predominantly queer artists. That work has almost invariably strengthened the queer community of Liverpool, London and the North West art scene.
Marc Vallée and Donald Milne’s images are domestic. They’re shot behind closed doors in private spaces. Looking at the day to day and morning after the night before. Jon Shard’s images document Manchester’s Flesh club nights, and David Swindells offers a collection of images of Martin Green’s London club Smashing.
This exhibition, beyond the images, and the process of making them, feels like the peak of an arc. It’s a document in itself, of their foundations, their lives and the community that built them, but its also functioning as a proposal.
For Your Pleasure is showing us what were safe spaces. That level of celebration, that level of pride, was still a subculture. We’re still talking about a time impacted by Thatcher’s Section 28 here. Councils and schools couldn’t do anything to promote or celebrate this network of clubs. Pride was independent because it had to be.
Now, its safe (ish), and councils actively fund, and in some cases manage, pride events, but that intensity of those club nights, the need for it is still there. An entire culture, preserved in images that the photographer stopped their life to take and process. I’d love to see what this exhibition looks like in 25 years. What 2025 queer club culture looks like on reflection in comparison.
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For your pleasure, 15 years of DuoVision is open at Open Eye Gallery until 9th March 2025
Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith
