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‘The world wasn’t ready for me’: Del LaGrace Volcano on photographing S&M scenes, leather-clad lesbians and a drag king self-portrait
The Guardian interview profiles Del LaGrace Volcano, a US-born photographer whose once-controversial images of LGBTQ+ communities, drag kings and sexual desire are now entering museums. Volcano reflects on a career shaped by defiance of gender and sexual norms, arguing that public fascination with their intersex identity often overshadowed the artistic quality of their work. The piece matters because it shows how attitudes to queer art and identity have shifted over time, while also highlighting the personal and financial costs of being ahead of that change.
Now 68 and living in Örebro, Sweden, Volcano contrasts their quiet present-day family life with an earlier period in London spent in squats, fetish parties and lesbian cruising scenes that informed major series such as Queer Dyke Cruising and Love Bites. Volcano describes being raised as a girl, undergoing an unwanted breast implant after doctors judged their development atypical, and later embracing an intersex identity in the 1990s, including through the 1995 image Self Portrait with Blue Beard. They say earlier media coverage was mocking, and note that Love Bites was briefly banned by US customs because of its explicit lesbian content; despite the work’s influence, Volcano says they have still struggled to receive the recognition and financial reward they believe it merits.
In short
- Del LaGrace Volcano reflects on queer art, identity and belated recognition
- Their work moved from scandal and bans to museum attention
- Volcano says identity debates eclipsed appreciation of their photography
Explained simply
Del LaGrace Volcano is a US-born photographer whose images of queer communities, drag culture and sexual expression were once considered so shocking that customs authorities confiscated some works. Now 68 and living in Sweden, their photographs are beginning to enter museum collections after decades of relative obscurity in mainstream art institutions. Their career documents the rejection that faced LGBTQ+ artists creating work that challenged sexual and gender norms.
Volcano spent formative years in London immersed in lesbian subcultures and fetish scenes, which shaped series including Love Bites and Queer Dyke Cruising. This work was explicit and resulted in bans and mocking coverage from mainstream media outlets. The photographer is intersex, and media coverage often reduced their identity to a source of curiosity rather than engaging seriously with their artistic vision or the communities they documented.
The recognition now coming to Volcano's work reflects broader cultural shifts in attitudes towards queer imagery and desire. Yet the photographer's experience reveals what preceded this shift: decades of financial struggle, institutional rejection and the overshadowing of their artistic achievement by public fascination with their identity.