Chosen by Cas Bradbeer

Zoe Leonard's I Want A President (1992) came to mind immediately when I heard of Rachel Reeves’s feminist rehang of No 11. It certainly avoids the male gaze so often inflicted on portraits of women. What’s more, it turns the lens back on male presidents as ‘always a boss’, ‘always a liar’, ‘always a thief’, ‘always a john’, and ‘always a clown’. 

Leonard's piece was made in the run-up to a US presidential election during the height of the AIDS epidemic. She declares ‘I want a president who lost their last lover to aids, who still sees that in their eyes every time they lay down to rest, who held their lover in their arms and knew they were dying’. The poem later became a social media phenomenon, especially in response to Donald Trump’s win in 2016. Now we find ourselves again in a presidential election season, as well as in the UK having just elected another male head of government. Perhaps it is time to poster Westminster with this poem as a symbol of solidarity, collective action and hope…

The poem embodies the power of protest chants through simple repetition, direct language, and stark imagery. I too want for president a dyke, a fag, a black woman, someone with bad teeth who crossdresses and has done drugs. Who’s with me? Or rather, who’s with Leonard?

Back in 1992, Leonard shared her work through photocopies circulated among friends and now they abound across the internet. In 2018, following her retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Hauser & Wirth produced a limited edition series of this poem as prints, which were sold in aid of the Treatment Action Group (an activist organisation that supports patients with HIV treatment).

Zoe Leonard (born 1961) is a New York-based artist who works primarily in photography and sculpture. Her work often explores themes of gender and sexuality, as well as mourning, migration and history. She focuses the viewers’ attention of the politics of display, inviting us to continually reimagine how we are represented, including political representation. Leonard has said ‘I am interested in the space this text opens up for us to imagine and voice what we want in our leaders, and even beyond that, what we can envision for the future of our society. I still think that speaking up is itself a vital and powerful political act.’

This piece was written by Cas Bradbeer in September 2024. They are a London-based curator who has conducted research projects at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Royal College of Art, and the Courtauld Institute of Art. They currently work as Curatorial Assistant at Strawberry Hill House & Garden, Heritage Project Officer at Humanists UK, Tour Guide for the Victoria & Albert Museum, and Community Curator for the Museum of Transology.

Find them on Instagram @CasBradbeer

When Rachel Reeves announced her intentions to rehang No 11 Downing Street with art 'by or of women', I had such a strong sense of recoil from that small word  'of'. There is just so much wrapped up in two little letters.  Centuries of Western art history, with women trapped in narrow roles with limited agency. Depicted as muses, or the Virgin Mary. Shaped by the male gaze, occasionally clothed, but largely not. Nevermind the notion of a woman making the art herself!

So as 'Rehang No 11' started to coalesce in my mind, I kept coming back to memories of Lindsey Mendick's 2022 show 'Off With Her Head'.  Her show tackled the 2000 year old iceberg of historical legacy that still shapes how our culture treats women today. The impossibility of being a woman, the dangers, the expectations and the limits. And god forbid a woman accrues any semblance of power, the baying audience, always there in judgement, waiting to pronounce her downfall – ‘off with her head’ – be it Anne Boleyn, Meghan Markle, or whichever female public figure you care to name. 

If No 11 Downing Street were a tardis, I'd quite like a full blown installation of her ghoulish 'Off With Her Head' pub, replete with velour flames, neon green glow and laser-eyed cats, underscored by the bleak Scold's Bridles hanging at the entry.  But for practicality's sake, I have settled on 'I drink to you Leda & Bjork' (2022), one of Mendick's triumphant ceramic vases from this show. I love how she re-appropriates the notion of the female body as vessel to re-examine the classical myth of Leda and that of contemporary female icons. 

This piece was written by K.L.Brown in September 2024. She is the founder of Rehang No 11 and an artist and writer based in East Kent. 

Find her on Instagram @KLBrownStudio and her work at www.AwayFromTheGrain.com