The exhibition comes at a time of crisis for LGBT venues. Headspace … performer Tom Kendall sports a Black Cap-shaped hat. They have been analysing the changing landscape of the queer community in London since 2016, and dragged up once again in front of the press at the Whitechapel Gallery to mark the opening of Queer Spaces: London, 1980s–Today. The event had been organised by the architecture academics Ben Campkin and Lo Marshall as a riff on the famous 1931 Beaux Arts Ball in New York, at which attendees dressed as the Chrysler building and the Waldorf Astoria hotel. They were London’s queer spaces, past and present. The models didn’t represent buildings of any great distinction, but to members of the audience they were a familiar lineup: the Black Cap, the Joiners Arms, the Glass Bar, the Lesbian and Gay Centre. Each performer was wearing an architectural model on their head, and instead of lip-syncing, they were reading out snippets of planning and licensing documents. A lot of work had gone into the costumes, but these were not of the kind you’d expect: there were no rhinestones or wigs. O n a summer’s day in 2017, in gardens near the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London, an unusual drag show took place.
