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This paper reflects on questions of sexuality, gender, and desire by delving into the artistic practice of the photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, whose work seeks to transcend the idea of a binary, patriarchal society that is hetero- and cisnormative. In one of his installations, on display from 2004 to 2009 in the Panorama Bar of the club Berghain, two highly ambiguous camera-less Freischwimmer photographs were displayed next to a photograph of a human genital area. It is this interdependence of different image realities that, as a performative strategy in the process of reception, not only entails anticipatory and transformative potentialities, but also allows for a queer reading. Starting from queer art studies and its critique of identity and visibility politics, the overall aim of this paper is to find out to what extent the photo installation intervenes in normative discourses of sexuality, gender, and desire. In the subcultural context of the techno and rave club culture, Tillmans' radically ambiguous installation becomes highly political, foregrounding a heterotopic playground, in which norms of visibility are negotiated in a way that eludes the hetero- and homonormative modes of representation. While emphasizing the inescapable dimension of context in both art production and its reception and interpretation, this paper argues that by aiming at a constant (re-)contextualization and (re-)combination Tillmans' curatorial practice favors discontinuities rather than continuities of meaning. This leaves us with the structural 'unsaturation' of contexts, and thus the impossibility of final determination.

Der kürzlich erschienene Sammelband Trap Door. Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility beweist wieder einmal, dass Gesellschaftsveränderung und die Ausbildung von Subjektivität auch im 21. Jahrhundert noch eng gekoppelt sind an Fragen von Sichtbarkeit – handelt es sich doch um ein Feld, auf dem schon immer um Vorstellungen, Normen und Wissen über Differenzkategorien gekämpft worden ist. In einem paradoxen Moment, in dem Trans*-Menschen immer sichtbarer in den Mainstream-Medien werden und zugleich mehr denn jepsychischer und physischer Gewalt ausgesetzt sind, öffnen die 21 inter- und transdisziplinären Beiträge von überwiegend trans* und queeren People of Color (Wissenschaftler_Innen, Künstler_Innen und Aktivist_Innen) eine wichtige Tür zum Nachdenken über folgende Frage: Wie können Trans*-Menschen in Kunst und visueller Kultur sichtbar werden, ohne wieder diskriminiert und stereotypisiert zu werden? Das Buch ist damit ein längst überfälliger und unerlässlicher Wegbegleiter für all diejenigen, die sich für ethische Fragen im Feld des Visuellen interessieren. ; As the recently published anthology Trap Door. Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility shows quite plainly, social change and the formation of subjectivity are still closely linked to questions of visibility. These have always acted as a battleground that allows expression of different perceptions, norms, and knowledges about categories of difference. Focusing on the current moment when trans* people appear to be winning the struggle for visibility while also continuing to be subject to psychological and physical violence on a daily basis, the 21 inter- and transdisciplinary contributions from mostly trans* and queer scholars, artists and activists of color open 'new doors' for thinking carefully about the ethical question of anti-discriminatory politics of trans* visibility. Therefore, this is a long overdue and essential companion for everyone who is interested in ethics of visuality.

Since 2008 the Gay Museum* (= Schwules Museum*) in Berlin has been reassessing its exhibition and collection practice by exploring what is means to be queer. In other words, the question is how highly complex debates and divergent recognition strategies within the LGBT*I/Q movement can be done differently and in a more democratic way within the museum. A central part of my bachelor thesis is a discussion of critical and emancipatory potential of queer‐feminist imagery and art politics for the exhibition practices of the Gay Museum*. With the thesis presented here, I address and attempt to answer the following question: How can the Gay Museum* become an accepted platform that provokes and negotiates the normalization of hetero‐ and homo‐centric and sexuality discourse? After an exposition of central theoretical concepts, with a particular reference to the methodology of queer‐feminist critique of representation, I give a brief overview of the genesis, meaning and foundation history of the Gay Museum*. I then examine the intentions and outcomes of the exhibition "trans*_homo – of lesbian trans*gays and other normalities" (17.08.‐19.11.2012) through a critical perspective. Specifically, I analyze how and whether in this exhibition action was taken at the level of representation in natural attributions of sexuality and gender. Following my critical analyzes, I explore both potentials as well as the boundaries of queer‐feminist impulses. Ultimately, I want to embed my preliminary findings from the analysis into a theoretical context for discussion. Above all, I intend to contribute to the academic conversation and examination about whether or not the function of the Gay Museum* as a discursive venue of LGBT*I/Q actually can change our modern apparatus. My primarily goal is to present a programmatic image of queer‐feminist politics of representation for exhibition practices and in so, to the extensive field of sexual and gender identity construction, which still holds many unresolved questions and contradictions. As I hope to show, exhibitions have the capacity to do intensive and varied work on the deconstruction and rearrangement of the hegemonic museum practice. The analyzed exhibition therefore provides important consideration for the future practical work and theory of the Gay Museum* as a discursive venue of identity politics (gender and sexuality).