Antony Hegarty: 'We need more oestrogen-based thinking'
As Antony Hegarty prepares to curate this year's Meltdown event in London, he talks about the artists who have had the greatest influence on his life and career – and why 'future feminism' will make the world a better place
Tim Adams
The Observer, Saturday 19 May 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/may/20/antony-hegarty-interview-meltdown-gender (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/may/20/antony-hegarty-interview-meltdown-gender)
Hegarty himself doesn't quite see it that way. The creation of his androgynous persona, and the discovery of the possibilities of his voice, was a mix-and-match of influence and experiment conducted over many years. Meltdown works best when the curator approaches it as a kind of musical autobiography, and certainly that is Hegarty's intention this year. His first forays into art were collages and cut-ups of magazines, which he still makes and exhibits from time to time, cultural references spliced together to form vivid and unsettling wholes. He takes the approach into other areas of his life, too, he suggests. "I like arranging all my friends as constellations, and I do love the process of curation, so this is perfect for me." To prove the point he sets his smartphone on his knee and starts scrolling excitedly through the acts he has lined up.
[...]
As a transgender person – and he has no wish to define the "meat and potatoes" of his sexuality any more precisely – he sees himself as having a small headstart on most of the rest of civilisation in his intimate understanding of the need for feminine power structures to restore imbalances created by "patriarchal religion, patriarchal economies and patriachal government". In this way he has moved from the deeply personal emotional conflicts and epiphanies of his earlier songs to what he sees as a more political message. In this vision the drag queens and trannies that he came of age among in New York are not only defiantly transgressive but also prophetic.
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Antony Hegarty says gay marriage is 'not the point of being queer'
Antony and the Johnson's singer says in interview with The Observer 'as if we just want to be included in these business-as-usual institutions'
21 May 2012 | By Anna Leach
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/antony-hegarty-says-gay-marriage-%E2%80%98not-point-being-queer%E2%80%99210512 (http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/antony-hegarty-says-gay-marriage-%E2%80%98not-point-being-queer%E2%80%99210512)
Transgender singer Antony Hegarty spoke about feminism and gay rights in an interview with The Observer on Sunday, ahead of his curation of the Meltdown festival at London's Southbank Centre this August.
The singer with Mercury-prize winning Antony and the Johnsons said in the interview with Tim Adams that he has no wish to define the 'meat and potatoes' of his sexuality. His band is named after Marsha P Johnson, the transgender rights activist whose body was found in the Hudson River in New York shortly after 1992's Pride march.
Hegarty said in the interview that his gender ambiguity means that he has more insight into the difference between men and women than most and that 'our lack of self-knowledge' about this difference is 'the whole problem'.
I tend to agree very much :)
But then, I MIGHT BE CALLED SEXIST?
Nature decided that T is also part of it's plan, so who are we to say we need more E thinking?
Me might go down in a blaze of glory of pink teddy bears, and flower power - that had been tried before - it did stop one futile war though. Fair enough.
Just thinking,
Axélle
PS: you know stuff like that just gets WAY over the top of this here girl – I feel :)