Photo: Michelle Henning
Trained as a fine artist and art historian, Gavin is a writer and creative project organiser.
Across his diverse output, he is interested in how the social worlds and aesthetic preoccupations of visual artists inform the making of popular music, queer culture and performance.
His latest book No Machos or Pop Stars is a detailed cultural history of the subversive influence of UK art school on popular music culture, telling the story of how fine art painters and performers became post-punk and pop music pioneers. He is currently developing related projects which explore histories of impactful art school scenes across English and UK regions more broadly.
Gavin has written widely on queer art and culture, showing how LGBTQ+ artists have challenged us to think again about how aesthetic judgements are routinely linked to social ones. He has published and delivered talks on artists and performers Oreet Ashery, Joe Brainard, Bird la Bird, Mel Brimfield, Shirley Clarke, Jayne County, Samuel R. Delany, Jason Holliday, David Hoyle, Kiki and Herb, Charles Ludlam, Split Britches, Steve Reinke, Larry Rivers, Frank Tovey, Andy Warhol and others.
He often works collaboratively with other authors and artists on creative projects, including as co-director of research project Performance Matters and of feature film This Is Not a Dream and compiler of the post-punk album The Art School Dance Goes On. With writer and curator Heike Roms, he is currently developing a new collaborative research project exploring what we might learn from regional histories of UK art school in rethinking creative education for the 21st century.
Gavin was formerly Professor of Visual Cultures and Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London and Attenborough Chair in Drama, Theatre and Performance at the University of Sussex. He is currently Professor of Fine Art at Northumbria University, Newcastle.
Follow me on instagram @gavin_butt_ and sign up for my newsletter below