The queer afterlives of public art: The spaces and times of Warsaw’s Tęcza (Rainbow)

This article develops the concept of the queer afterlives of public art through an intensive case study of Julita Wojcik’s Tęcza, a rainbow-arched structure that stood in Warsaw, Poland, from 2012 until 2015, during which time it experienced repeated arson attacks. We examine why and how the contested (queer) memory of this now-dismantled public artwork continues to linger in the public imagination, suggesting that Tęcza’s socially and politically charged afterlives must be understood not only in relation to the spatial contexts Tęcza inhabited (a central preoccupation in public-art scholarship) but also its diverse temporalities, including the timing of its creation; its cycles of attack, rebuilding, and ultimate dismantling; and the contested and unstable ways in which it continues to evoke (or fails to evoke) queer progress for different audiences. The case study draws on interview data with 46 key stakeholders (including commissioners, activists, and residents) to contribute new insights into public art’s queer afterlives in an underexplored Central European setting. Our analysis shows how Tęcza’s afterlives have been characterised by ambiguous processes of LGBTQ+ acceptance and rejection within public memory, becoming for some an unintentional ‘queer monument’. We advance understandings of public art’s queer potentials in space and time along processes of inclusion and exclusion that are, or become, linked with marginalised (in our case, LGBTQ+) identities.