queer art

Arts & Culture, news No Comments

Art This Week: Psychedelic Collage and Meditations On The Unpleasant

By

(image via Nat Girsberger / Facebook)

Close Your Eyes
Opening Thursday, December 13 at The Storefront Project, 6 pm to 9 pm. On view through January 6.

Looking at Nat Girsberger’s collages, on view at the Lower East Side’s Storefront Project starting Thursday, is a good way to get lost in a kind of psychedelic fantasy land. Outer space, nature, animals, and human figures intermingle in landscapes with colors that seem brighter than what one would typically encounter in reality. In a time where the news feels more and more anxiety-inducing every day, it’s important to have little moments of escape, where we’re not filled with dread and instead perhaps wondering about the inner life of a deer standing among very large mushrooms standing on a vivid path that seems to be leading into the sun.

More →

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Arts & Culture, news No Comments

Queer Intimacy From Mapplethorpe and Goldin, Plus More Art This Week

By

Hikaru Fujii, The Primary Fact, video still, 2018, seven-channel video, 73 min. Courtesy of the artist. (image via ISCP / Facebook)

The Primary Fact
Opening Tuesday, June 26 at the International Studio and Curatorial Program, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through October 12.

Did you know there is a recently-excavated mass grave in Athens, Greece with contents dating back to 7 B.C., including “eighty shackled skeletons” with great teeth? Artist and current resident at the International Studio and Curatorial Program Hikaru Fujii does, and he’s spent a lot of time documenting and learning about this curious piece of history. The result of this work will be on view in The Primary Fact, the artist’s first solo exhibition in the U.S. It features predominantly video and photography, focusing on the “inconclusive scientific viewpoints” that have emerged about the grave, its contents, and its history. In addition to displaying actual imagery from the Athenian grave, Fujii also assembled a group of Greek men to recreate the choreographic moment of mass execution (presumably due to a political coup) that led to this grave in the first place. More →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Arts & Culture, news No Comments

Art This Week: Continued Haunts, Queer Ceramics, and Planning Ahead For Death

By

(image via Leslie-Lohman Museum / Facebook)

Objectified
Opening Friday, November 3 at Leslie+Lohman Prince Street Project, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through November 5.

This swift three-day exhibition shows the work of queer ceramic artist Caitlin Rose Sweet. I first encountered Sweet’s work when I interviewed her about a show she was doing inspired by Bosch’s notorious triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights. Since then, she hasn’t stopped whipping up sculptural pieces that impressively mix elements of grotesque and feminine. Friday, her solo show Objectified is unveiled to the public, placing the queer femme body in all its manifestations on view. Sweet’s ceramic sculpture creations can resemble traditional craft art, domestic home goods, genitalia, gnarled fingers, and fantastical beasts all at once. Will you be entranced or spooked? More →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Arts & Culture, news, Social Justice No Comments

Two Exhibitions Illuminate Queer NYC Subculture During the AIDS Epidemic

By

Image: © Estate of David Wojnarowicz, Democracy, 1990, Black-and-white silkscreen print, Courtesy of ClampArt, New York City

A black-and-white illustration by David Wojnarowicz, on view last week at Chelsea gallery ClampArt, shows a grim reaper descending with a large scythe. The reaper claims to be “Democracy At Work,” but freely slices through individuals and activists voicing concerns like “No healthcare,” “Killer cops,” “Corrupt politicians,” and “Unemployment.” Though the piece was created in 1990, this so-called democracy keeps on wounding today.

More →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Arts & Culture, news No Comments

Radical Hospitality, Political Stitching, and More Art Affairs

By

(image via Idio Gallery / Facebook)

Radical Hospitality
Opening Thursday, June 15 at IDIO Gallery, 6pm. On view through July 15.

“Art is my life,” you’ve probably heard so many people proclaim. But rarely does it ring true in quite so literal a sense as this exhibition at Idio Gallery, in which “radical hospitality” means the East Williamsburg art space will be open from sun-up till sundown for 30 days in a row, welcome to all for any stretch of time. It’s the culmination of an ongoing exploration of the same name by the gallery’s curator Montana Simone, built partially by research and partially by actual times she experienced the hospitality of others, particularly in locations seen by Westerners as “hostile.”

More →

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Arts & Culture, news No Comments

This Hip-Hop Dance Production Involves a Mascot, Wrestling, and a Senior Aerobics Class

By

(photo: Maria Baranova)

It could take something as simple as a step-touch to unite the generations. At least that’s the impression you might get in a room with the company of experimental hip-hop and dance group Yackez. Most contemporary dance projects are rife with young and lithe bodies, but the cast of the latest and largest Yackez production, Give It To You Stage, ranges from ages 25 to 87. More →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Arts & Culture, news No Comments

An Art Show Where Queer Bodies are Phantasmagoric, Vanishing, and Void

By

(Flyer via Osman Can Yerebakan)

(Flyer via Osman Can Yerebakan)

Queer-themed art shows are having a moment right now, and we can only expect that trend to continue as we enter a time of uncertainty about the future of LGBTQ rights in this country (and those of all marginalized people, really). An ongoing exhibition called Like Smoke (on view through December 4 at the New York Artists Equity Association on the Lower East Side) feels so right-now in that way. The show mines gay history and examines the ways in which oppression, both past and persistent, still creep into the present. Though it examines the queer body, you won’t see any actual bodies on display. Instead there’s a great gaping black hole, phantoms from the past, and a lingering sense of absence.

More →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Arts & Culture, news No Comments

This Week’s Art: A Fish Market Repurposed and Many Types of ‘Graphic Art’

By

Mike Taylor (image via Idio Gallery)

Mike Taylor (image via Idio Gallery)

Mike Taylor: Condensed Flesh
Opening Thursday October 13 at Idio Gallery, 6 pm to 11 pm. On view through October 30.

East Williamsburg space Idio Gallery put out a call for crowdsourced financial support several months ago, which very well could have signaled that it was beginning to scale down. However, with a show at Bushwick Open Studios and another show opening shortly after, they don’t appear to be going anywhere. This one is a solo show, presenting works on paper and paintings by renowned graphic artist Mike Taylor, created between 2012 and now. Finished works won’t be the only thing on display in this show, as Idio’s downstairs basement space will be transformed into a showcase of the artist in-process, with drawings not yet done, prints, and “printmaking debris” on view as well. Taylor’s work is bold and bright, often utilizing neon colors and mixing abstract patterns with notes of realism and the human form filtered through the style of the illustrator and comic artist.

More →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Arts & Culture, news No Comments

Chinese Food Stories, Dirty Drawings, and More Art This Week

By

(flyer via Mia Schachter / Facebook)

(flyer via Mia Schachter / Facebook)

Co//Modified: A Showcase of Design Artists
Opening Monday October 3 at The Living Gallery, 7 pm to 10 pm. One night only. 

In this one-night-only show curated by Mia Schachter, eight artists who “straddle the line of intention between utilitarian design and art” will make their way to Bushwick’s The Living Gallery to show their work. Many of these artists make work that they predominantly try to sell as useful objects, like hyperstylized papier-mâché percussion instruments, ceramic mugs or pots, and embroidery. This show seeks to lay their salesperson spirit to rest momentarily so they can merely show off their creations as art. But if you’d like to go home with a piece or two, you’ll be able to do so as well.

More →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Arts & Culture, news No Comments

Fruit-Powered Chandeliers, Brooklyn Drag Art, and Other Art Happenings

By

"SELF REFLECTION" The Untitled Space Gallery, New York

(image courtesy of Milk & Night Curatorial)

Self-Reflection
Opening Tuesday September 27 at The Untitled Space, 6 pm to 9 pm. On view through October 8. 

No less than 21 female artists will descend upon Tribeca art gallery The Untitled Space this Tuesday for the show “Self-Reflection.” Their art spans multiple genres, but all pieces will focus on some form of self-portrait, using the artists’s own bodies as a tool for creation. These self-portraits aren’t the typical depiction of oneself; some are even constructed through wool tapestry weaving. Rather than being potrayed by others, where objectification and the pesky male gaze can run rampant, these women will take their bodies into their own hands (in some cases, literally) to construct a self that feels authentic to them, however that might manifest. Some photograph themselves, some use images of their own nude form for painting references– either way, it’s all them.

More →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
1 2