Neil Bartlett introduces their performance, A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep:
In 1871, the artist Simeon Solomon wrote a book about his dreams. In it, he describes his soul taking a night-time journey from fear to joy, from oppression to liberation, from darkness to beauty – but the book had to be published privately, because Solomon’s dreams were all about loving men, which was illegal in Britain at that time.
Maybe dreams were the only thing that looked like reality, in 1871.
Solomon called his book A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep.
In 1873, Solomon was arrested for having sex with another man. Although this ended his career as a fashionable artist, it didn’t stop him from working – or dreaming. The two beautiful, love-struck faces in The Moon and Sleep, for instance, were painted over 20 years later.
Simeon Solomon
The Moon and Sleep (1894)
Tate
In 1987, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, expressions of love between men were still violently stigmatised in the UK. In response to that situation, two young British gay artists – myself and the painter Robin Whitmore – took Solomon’s book of dreams as our inspiration and created a touring performance piece which we also called A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep. Night after night, Solomon’s images of oppression and undefeated longing once again took flight, inspiring audiences to keep on dreaming in that time of darkness.
