Sydney World Pride and Mardi Gras 2023 were a huge success. Sydney was activated in a way rarely seen – block and street parties, cultural festivals and dance parties for all tastes. Now that the beats have diminished and the glitter has settled, viewing Pride (R)evolution at the State Library of New South Wales made it all the more richer and remarkable for me. This show is an astonishing survey of the importance of difference.
Pride (R)evolution is one of just five serious, in-depth exhibitions about queer culture held in Sydney during Pride: the others were curator Margot Riley’s William Yang’s Sydneyphiles Reimagined, University of New South Wales’ The Party – about the rich seam of Sydney’s club and dance parties from the 1970s to the 1990s, National Art School’s Queer Contemporary, including Richard Perram’s major exhibition, and the Powerhouse’s Absolutely Queer, with a focus on non-binary dressing and the current generation. It was the smaller, more agile spaces that held these significant shows, and not the larger, prominent galleries, such as has been happening in Melbourne.
