CURATOR LED VIP TOUR OF PLATFORM 2024 WITH GEMMA ROLLS-BENTLEY

A Million Candles, Illuminating Queer Love and Life

Inspired by London Art Fair’s partnership with Charleston, the modernist home of painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, the 2024 Platform section of the fair brings together art that shines a light on Queer love and life selected by guest curator Gemma Rolls-Bentley. In the early 20th century, the historic house and artist studio became a Queertopia for members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Vanessa’s sister Virginia Woolf. In Woolf’s 1928 novel Orlando, an imaginative biography of her lover and muse Vita Sackville-West in which the protagonist changes sex from male to female, she wrote:

“A million candles burnt in him without his being at the trouble of lighting a single one.”

At a time when LGBTQIA+ life is increasingly under threat in the UK and globally, Rolls-Bentley calls on the words of Queer Ancestors as she brings together art that reflects the resilience, the beauty and the passion of Queer love and life.

Rolls-Bentley has long been focused on platforming Queer Art and art that explores LGBTQIA+ identity in her curatorial practice, in this tour you’ll gain an insight into the work she’s selected to feature in this year’s Platform exhibition.