Look closely at the whip held here, and you’ll see that it’s actually the subject’s hair pulled back into a single braid. ⁠ A queue is a hairstyle worn by male Chinese immigrants in the nineteenth-century United States. Anti-Chinese sentiments and Western standards associating long hair with women turned the queue into a target: Chinese men were deemed un-American and effeminate, leading to violent, sometimes fatal, attacks. ⁠ Depicting his subject wielding his own queue as a whip, Oscar yi Hou (@oscyhou) suggests the figure’s empowerment through queer masculinity. The painting cites the homoerotic photography of Bob Mizer and a drawing from our own collection by contemporary artist Wang Fang-yu. #OscaryiHouBkM⁠ ⁠ 🎨 Oscar yi Hou (born Liverpool, UK, 1998). Coolieisms, aka: Leather Daddy’s Highbinder Odalisque, 2022. Oil, acrylic, gouache on canvas, 64 × 46 in. (162.6 × 116.8 cm). Courtesy of the artist and James Fuentes, New York. © Oscar yi Hou. (Photo: Jason Mandella, courtesy of James Fuentes LLC) → Wang Fang-yu (Chinese, 1913 - 1997). Double Dragons, 1990. Ink on paper, Overall: 40 x 70in. (101.6 x 177.8cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Shao Fang Wang, 1991.248. © artist or artist's estate