Rosé #01 – The Queer Art Zine

Queer, once understood hostilely as deviation from normative social orders, today embodies self-determined ways of living. In that, queer people creatively shape notions of sexual desire and gender identity, as well as relationships, and much more. In this context, and throughout queer culture and history, friendship is one of the fundamental principles of self-organization.

Friendship creates security, protection, care and togetherness where institutions fail to provide queer people with adequate support structures, or even worse, incite discrimination. Especially in the art sector, queers represent stakeholders with multiple precarious backgrounds exposed to increased economic and health pressures. This is where queer relations and networks can serve as safety nets, strategies of emotional and economic support as well as survival.
This zine is about friendship in a double sense. It is based on a long and deep communion between the editors. In addition, nine artists and collectives discuss the topic in many different ways: often overtly addressing intimacy, like-mindedness, closeness, and often vaguely, along the lines of technology, networks, and dependence.

Intended to be a space for queer artists, queer art and queer themes, Rosé puts the works at its center. It features photography, performance, design, installation, happening, painting, social media art, sculpture and drag. In this sense, Rosé can be seen as an exhibition that can be touched, picked up, taken away and shared. This is Rosé, meant to be in motion.