NETHERLANDS GUIDE

Discover Benelux | Top Art & Culture Spots in the Netherlands in 2020 | The Ultimate Destination
sex (cross-dressing) is not just something
from the past decade(s). For many centuries,
men and women have changed roles
during folk festivals, in theatre, during wars
and also outside of any of these contexts.
Those in charge didn’t always allow this;
disruption of gender classification was
considered ‘disruption of the ruling order’.
The people behind five drag acts active
in the Netherlands, tell their personal
story in Drag Power - Gender, pride &
glamour. They reveal their backgrounds,
experiences and the various reasons for
starting with drag. Richard Keldoulis has
been active as the – activist – drag queen
Jennifer Hopelezz for 18 years, and is at
the base of House of Hopelezz and important
drag events such as the Drag
Olympics and Superball. Sander den Baas
has been active in the drag scene for
many years and appeared as Lady Galore
in the TV programme The Diva In Me last
year, and also in the documentary Galore,
about Lady Galore. The alter ego of Ante
Joosten is Mason Tonight, the only drag
king amongst the main characters in the
exhibition. Afif Shafit is from Malaysia and
has been active for a relatively short time
as a drag queen, named Licka Lolly. The
enigmatic ChelseaBoy is the alter ego of
Brian van der Heijden.
The current scene and historical roots of
drag are further explained in the exhibition:
by means of visual arts, historical objects,
photography, videos and outfits. The exhibition
shows a rich and varied image of the
past and present, but also the social and
cultural structures through which drag was
and is rejected and/or embraced.
Drag Power - Gender, pride & glamour
has been curated by CODA together
with Willem Hoogstede and Paul Derrez,
owners of Galerie Ra in the city centre of
Amsterdam. Derrez is a jewellery designer,
Hoogstede a retired teacher, and they are
both art collectors. Derrez and Hoogstede
see drag as a powerful medium to talk
about history, gender, personal stories, (in)
justice and activism.
Drag Kings, Lee Marchetti (2011).
Photo: Feriet Tunc
“The exhibition touches upon the history
of drag, the diversity, its glamorous and
theatrical side, but also its political, activist
edges. When we started thinking about
curating this exhibition, we thought: there’s
a lot of attention on drag in the media,
but it’s always quite superficial. Drag is
usually very visual, and we wanted to dig
deeper into the subject. There is a person
beyond the glamour. So, we started with
researching how drag manifested itself in
history in, for example, theatre and in social
life. In the exhibition, we tell this history
in an international context and move
towards contemporary drag in a Dutch
context. Because drag is very visual, there
is a lot of photography to be found about
it. There are contemporary photographers
who focus predominantly on the concept
of drag in their photography practice. For
instance, one of the participating artists
in the exhibition, Léon Hendrickx, made a
series of photos called Kings and Queens,
in which he photographed drag queens
and the people behind the drag personas,
without their costume. Then, he morphed
these two sides of the same person, so the
drag persona is embracing the same body
without being in drag,” reveals Derrez in an
interview with Current Obsession.
Micha & Snorella, Amsterdam, NL (2015). Photo: Leon Hendrickx
Discover the power of drag at CODA
Museum Apeldoorn from 3 November
2019 till 1 March 2020 inclusive.
For more information, visit:
coda-apeldoorn.nl/dragpower
Issue 71 | November 2019 | 55