How to Mourn a Faggot in a Faggot Way?

For Jean

The trigger for the creation of this work was unresolved grief following the loss of my friend Juan Cueto. His family buried him according to their own beliefs and against his own—erasing his queer life, partner, and community. This double denial—as if he had not only died, but never existed—left me with a profound sense of injustice and the question: how can we mourn an indecent indecently? Traditional funeral rituals enforce solemnity, stripping the body of its sexual history. This desexualization is not neutral—it is a tool of moral control, an act of erasing queer existence.¹

A Camp Symbol of Memento Mori

The installation consists of a jockstrap encircled by Schwedenbomben—fragile sweets whose delicate shells crack at the slightest touch. Their vulnerability echoes the vanitas tradition, particularly in Baroque still lifes, where desserts symbolize the fleeting nature of life. As mass-produced, inexpensive confections, Schwedenbomben introduce irony and camp aesthetics rooted in queer culture, fusing the memento mori with exaggeration, humor, and artifice. In this context, Schwedenbomben become a camp symbol of memento mori.

Pleasure over Practicality

Both the jockstrap and the Swedish bomb are purely for pleasure. Sweets, packed with sugar, offer no real nutritional value. Instead, their taste, appearance, and smell are designed to maximize enjoyment.

Similarly, the jockstrap barely covers the skin, functioning less as a practical garment and more as a means to enhance the body’s sexual allure. Together, through a significant overlap of symbolic meanings and affective charge, they emphasize the fleeting nature of sensual pleasure.

A Queer Ritual

But where is the body? Is it a summoning, an offering, or both?

The jockstrap, lying on the ground, evokes the absence of the body: a trace
of someone once present, desired, and lost. Paired with the sweets, it recalls food offerings for the dead found across cultures—from Día de Muertos and Slavic Dziady to the Hungry Ghost Festival—rituals that seek to bridge the gap between the living and the dead.

or is it a Summuning?

Meanwhile, the circle suggests a protective barrier—separating the summoner from the unknown forces they seek to invoke. In Western esoteric tradition, materials like salt, flour, or chalk were used to form magic circles. Yet here, the Schwedenbomben are used, introducing a humorous twist—a sprinkle of absurdity.

Echoing the ancient stone circles, the piece draws on the traditions of Land Art and Arte Povera from a queer perspective—because even in the afterlife, camp deserves a seat at the table.

These ritualistic aspects of the installation also resonate with deeper themes of collective mourning and personal loss within the queer community. So, who is this queer ritual for?

HIV/AIDS Epidemics and Mental Health Crisis

In 1991 Felix González-Torres placed a pile of wrapped candies in a gallery to commemorate the loss of his close friend to AIDS — Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.). Visitors were free to take candies away. The gradually diminishing pile of candies mirrored the deterioration and disappearance of patience consumed by the disease. The artist transformed private loss into a public act inviting the audience to engage in a shared experience of mourning and reflection.

Similarly, my piece reflects the grief I carry from losing my dear friend, Jean Cueto, who took his own life. His death is a reminder of the struggles faced by many of us within the LGBT community. According to a 2023 Trevor Project survey, 18% of LGBT youth have attempted suicide—twice the rate of their peers in the general teenage population. This devastating statistic highlights the enduring effects of minority stress, which amplifies feelings of invisibility and hopelessness and too often leads to the loss of young lives.

Humor as Resistance

Yet, despite the heaviness, there is room for a gentle smile—a bittersweet nod to life’s absurdities. The Schwedenbomben and jockstrap are a playful juxtaposition, combining sensual desires and intimacy with the inevitability of decline. Humor, after all, is often the queer community’s most powerful form of resistance: a way to embrace our fragility while laughing in the face of despair. This piece stands as both a personal tribute to Jean and a call for solidarity, visibility, and care within our community.

1. As Judith Butler argues in Melancholy Gender, heteronormative structures require the erasure of queer bonds—a forced oblivion in which the lost lover, unacceptable desires, and unlivable life are relegated to the realm of the unspeakable. “I never
   loved him, I never lost him.” ↩︎