How did the magnificent PR machine of historic royal court
portraiture reinforce class structure before the 20th Century? With
an irreverent look at representations of monarchy in the National
Portrait Gallery's pre 1900 collections, 'Queen of alternative
style' drag act Timberlina was joined by esteemed femme cultural
critic Bird La Bird to discuss and explore issues of class, race,
gender and feminism. For those not in the know, Bird La Bird is one
of underground London's most celebrated performance artistes, who
puts the fun back in to feminism and the camp back in to
communism.
Our hostess is wearing a pair of frilly, red burlesque knickers,
gold tights that reveal sizeable leg tattoos, glittery red
'Dorothy' heels, fake ermine, a bustier and a garland of gold which
looks like a mayoral chain except that its made from those nifty
little gold kitchen scourers.
We the assembled punters follow her like loyal subjects through
the National Portrait Gallery as she directs us to oil paintings
that for her provoke both anger and envy. The anger comes, she
says, from learning about the violence and distruction that exists
behind the images of the impeccable royals, dressed in their finery
or 'curtain swag' as she likes to refer to it. The envy and the
attendant self-flagellation that comes with this realisation is
driven by her hatred for the royals and the guilty secret that she
covets their clothes and is seduced by the beauty of the
paintings.
How refreshing in this Diamond Jubilee year to hear someone who
is offended by the Royal sense of entitlement and the reverential
imagary that resides in the National Portrait Gallery as a tribute
to their 'greatness'.
Take the portrait of Catherine of Braganza, for example which
shows the seventeenth century princess painted shortly after her
marriage to King Charles II. You might expect a small sum of money,
perhaps a few fine vestments or even a hogroast to make up a
princess's dowry but Catherine's dad, King John IV of Portugal
transferred possession of Bombay to England. Tidy.
The story that's not told in the uncritical display of many of the
images that pay homage to royalty is the trail of death, slavery,
torture and destruction that underpin the royals' privileged social
position.
In 'The Secret of England's Greatness' we see an image of Queen
Victoria handing over a bible to an African king who is prostrate
at her feet. It's one of many images here that seem to celebrate
the subjugation of entire peoples and nations. Bird jokes that the
painting could be renamed 'History's worst swap'.
At the same time Queen Victoria claimed sovereignty over India
when a royal marriage made it obvious to the British in 1877 that
their Queen Victoria would be outranked by her own daughter who
would someday become German Empress. The British government led by
Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli conferred the addtional title
Empress of India by an Act of Parliament, reputedly to assuage the
monarch's irritation at being, as a mere Queen, notionally inferior
to her own daughter. (Princess Victoria was the wife of the
reigning German Emporer). Oh the shame. At over fourteen million
square miles of territory and 450 million people, India was home to
more than a quarter of the world's population and was in this
instance used to indulge the Queen's vanity.
It's a little known fact that the National Portrait Gallery is
built on the former site of a workhouse and its in the memory of
those who died here and many others who died or suffered under
colonial British rule that our hostess Bird La Bird dedicates her
irreverent tour.
Delivered with her trademark Scouse humour she transforms the
meaning and the content of the gallery's art works and asks us to
consider afresh our own relationship to them. One hopes that she
will be invited back to the gallery to impart more of her genial
discourse and we at DIVA certainly hope that will be sooner rather
than later.
Bird's talk took place as part of
the National Portrait Gallery's The Late Shift season of late
night gallery openings
Picture of Bird in front of King Charles II, attributed to Thomas
Hawker, oil on canvas, circa 1680.
