Gallery Guide

"Drag Queens . . . And Other Things." Watercolors by Max Springer. Mumford-Parker House Gallery, 1929 Front St.

SAN DIEGO'S television news departments rarely focus upon art gallery opening receptions. If the opening is not held at a major local cultural institution, such as the San Diego Museum of Art, that type of exposure, coveted because it can generate thousands of dollars in sales or launch an artist's career, is even more infrequent.

Yet one television station in town was sufficiently intrigued by the subject matter depicted in the current show at the Parker-Mumford Gallery, the gallery itself (in the eccentric Victorian House residence of artist Robert Miles Parker), the unusual personalities to be present at the opening and, presumably, the potential for mass titillation of all these elements combined, to cover the event for its news broadcast.

In this case, the controversial subject, "drag queens," might more aptly be termed "the art gimmick of the week."

The term "drag queen" is vernacular for the very small but highly visible percentage (1/2 to 1 percent in our culture, according to David McWhirter, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCSD) of the total gay male population who appear in public dressed as women. Motives for this part-to-full-time activity range from nightclub entertainment to prostitution.

If that isn't confusing enough, drag queens are distinctly different from transvestite heterosexual males and female impersonators, although some drag queens may be female impersonators and vice versa.

"Drag Queens . . . And Other Things," a collection of watercolored pen and ink drawings by local artist Max Springer, is garnering a lot of attention at the Mumford-Parker Gallery. About half of the works in the exhibition are sketches, primarily humorous, of drag quuens or other males who donned drag. The "other things" are buildings, flower arrangements, other types of queens, etc.

Honored guests at Springer's crowded opening reception were two of San Diego's best-known drag queens, whose prtraits are on display: Her Most Imperial Majesty Empress XI de San Diego, Nicole Murray (Empress Nicole, for short) and Dowager Empress Milo, both of the Imperial Court of San Diego. The Imperial Court is a gay social service organization.

The scepter-bearing Nicole, who refers to herself as the "social grande dame of the gay community," was in a floor-length white Philippine lace gown, tiara, pearls and white open-toed lace heels. Needless to say, Empress Nicole and Dowager Empress Milo upstaged the artworks, which were, after all, the reason for the exhibition.

Springer executes his oeuvres in a variety of styles so diverse that four or five artists appear to be exhibiting the works. Although he may have demonstrated it elsewhere, none of these styles reflects an out-of-the-ordinary drawing ability, particularly when it comes to drawing people. His works are being publicized as watercolors, but most of them are funky pen-and-ink illustrations colored with watercolors. However, Springer does have a flair for decorative detail and color, which he augments with a risqué sense of humor.

Springer's stylistic indecisiveness is well illustrated by his depictions of buildings. Some are as whimsical as those of Parker. Others have a strong resemblance in color scheme, style and feeling to Edward Hopper's work. And still others, Springer's strongest two, show a fascination with with images composed of details from art deco building facades, a theme that has been explored ad infinitum by dozens of photographers and photorealists in the past.

In recent years, gay and straight performance artists (the art gallery, not the nightclub, kind) have discovered drag as a means of conveying their artistic message, though drag queens will argue that their dressing up is an art form, also.

Use of drag queens as photographic subjects is much more common. The late photographer Diane Arbus was fascinated by them, as is photographer George Albert, who compiled an entire photo essay on them. It was published in book form in 1975 under the title "The Queens." Movies such as "The Queen" (1968) depicted the behind-the-scene action at a drag queen beauty pageant, and more recent ones like "La Cage aux Folles," "Victor/Victoria" and the films of Andy Warhol have brought entertainment-oriented drag queens to public attention.

Many of these endeavors, however frivolous, made an attempt to convey the emotional stress which appears to be an occupational hazard of being a drag queen. This results largely from severe discrimination against them which, according to Empress Nicole, "is worse from the gay community than from the straight (heterosexual) community."

"Gay people seem to have forgotten that drag queens were at the forefront of the Gay Revolution," Nicole explains.

Although Springer professes great empathy towards drag queens, whom he characterizes as "marvelous and brave individuals," he chose to portray them in a superficial manner that relegates most of his works to the realm of humorous, campy illustration, which is of questionable quality to begin with, rather than insightful or creative art.

Even the title of the exhibition, "Drag Queens . . . And Other Things," while funny, reflects this shallow perspective. Drag queens are people, not things, and this exhibition reinforces all of the old stereotypes.

In "having fun" as an artist, Springer doesn't take advantage of an excellent opportunity to make a more definitive social statement about sex roles in our culture and appears instead to have garnered a lot of unwarranted early career publicity.