Monday, December 31

DREAMER + REALIST = ENGAGED CITIZEN




Happy New Year.

A big idea came to me this year.

I am dreamer.

Curiosity, creativity and imagination are not a laundry list but are all part of the same circle--each connected action is connected to each other. But the circle also includes realism, stoicism and pragmatism.

How is that?

We often think of dreaming in opposition to realism-- but it is not.


This blog is named after the Biennale Art 52nd International Art Exhibition , curated by the great Robert Storr.

The full title of the 52nd Venice Biennale is "THINK with the SENSES, FEEL with the MIND: Art in the present tense."


What I believe Storr means by this is that art is EXPERIENCED. What we need now is art that helps us become more engaged citizens of the world.

On his curatorial message Storr said:

I am not trying to say a single thing. I am trying to present a certain approach to art, an attitude towards how to think about it. Essentially, I am trying to say that certain divisions that are common in art criticism, in particular those found among academic writers, are an impediment to understanding and experiencing art. Mainly, that prevalent notions of a division between the conceptual and the perceptual, an idea that had its origin in Marcel Duchamp and was then reinforced by certain avant-garde practices in the ‘70s, and then reinforced further in the ‘80s by the reaction against painting, is a misunderstanding. Because there is no such thing as a good painting without an idea, and there is no such thing as a good idea without a form


Here is a story to end 2007 and bring us into 2008.

The first time I walked into Andrea Rosen's gallery in New York city was during the summer before I would leave pre-medical studies to go study art in Chicago. Because it was summer the gallery have an unimpressive exhibition of inventory from the artists they represented. Most of the work was OK, nothing to exciting.

There was two stacks of paper in the middle of the room-- side by side.

They where stacked about knee high, white paper bigger than poster size. One stack of paper had the sentence "Somewhere better than this place." The other stack read "Nowhere better than this place." The work was by the artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres. The artist left instructions to take a sheet of paper, but only one.

So I look and carefully choose "Somewhere better than this place." it seem the obvious choice. This is positive thinking and wishing and dreaming. The other piece of paper seemed so negative.

I picked up the poster and to my surprise... it was a double sided poster the other side read "Nowhere better than this place."


Mr. Gonzalez-Torres piece was all of the life, the whole circle, two-sides of the same coin. An epiphany: to be a complete person, we must be both a dreamer and a realist.

Sunday, December 30

INNOVATE or DIE


David Armano has a great blog full of some awesome visualization that I used in a presentation I gave at University of Illinois at Chicago

EMOTION + REASON = EPIPHANY


























Eric Kandel, the Nobel prize winning father of neuralscience has a new book: "In Search of Memory"

The book traces Professor Kandel's pioneering research from the unknowable "black box" of the mind to our current understanding molecular biology and information processing into the mind.


Thanks in part to the revolution in imaging technology brought on by new fMRI and other scanning technology, neuralscientists have made incredible maps of the brain.

These maps help us understand the world from the point of view of our brain.

5 PRINCIPLES OF NEURALSCIENCE ( from Eric Kandel)

1.MIND = BRAIN
2.MENTAL FUNCTION , from simple reflex to complex creative acts of music and art, carried out by discreet neural circuits.
3.ALL BRAIN CIRCUITS ARE MADE OF NERVE CELLS
4.NERVE CELLS USE NEUROTRANSMITTERS TO COMMUNICATE
5.NEUROTRANSMISSION IS GENETICALLY CONTROLLED


Discreet areas in the brain lead to war, morals, cooperation and conflict.

Also, morals are the side effect of natural selection. But morals are in conflict with greed which is also genetic.

But from the perspective of our brain, both greed and morality can be strengthened or weakened. By the use it or lose it principles.


From a neuroscience perspective art is the kind of information that art can strengthen our neural networks for ethics, empathy and tolerance. Ultimately we must all learn how to learn and teach ourselves empathy and trust-- but art can help-- it might even be a teaching tool.

This is the case because art can activate mirror neurons, art is inherently rewarding and pro-social-- in a way it helps build trust.

From wikipedia:

Mirror Neurons are premotor neurons which fire both when an we act and when we observe the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of another person, as though the observer were itself acting.

So, if I cut my finger -- I would feel pain. And if you saw me cut my finger-- you would feel pain. This is the beginning of empathy.

A very interesting Canadian artist Ariel Garten has a lot of incredible art in the overlap between neural science and art. She is a scientist and intellectual who makes cutting edge art and performances in perfromance, dance, music (violin, percussion, and cuttinge-edge instruments such as organflute, hydraulophone, plasmaphone, electronic, quintephone, and other). She explores the intersection of art and neuroscience.

Sustainability/Durability + Efficiency + Utility = Beauty

I asked Robert MacNeill to consider the relationship between art and business and specifically to consider how the TARGET company invites high-end designers to make low-end products.
----------------------------------------


What type of project does the architect prefer to design?

The architect is also concerned with sustainability. But his definition of the term may vary from his client's, or from other design professionals. One definition: sustainable products are manufactured with a low impact to the environment. Another: sustainable products have a long life-span of usability and need not be replaced regularly.

The Parthenon may not be sustainable under the first definition; quarries can have a negative impact. Perhaps it should have been made of wood, because careful logging can have a lesser impact.

But I consider the Parthenon extremely sustainable. Any building that lasts 2000+ years makes very good use of its materials. It would take a whole forest to build and rebuild our wooden Parthenon for a thousand years.

Architect's own set of design principles. There are three that have been repeated for thousands of years by Vitruvius, Palladio, Gropius - even Venturi:

1) Durability (Firmitas)
2) Utility (Utilitas)
3) Beauty (Venustas)

How do these historic principles fit with those of the Target Company?

Where do Target's principles fit in to our historical view?

There is only one clear correlation between the two: Sustainability may be reinterpreted under our second definition as 1) Durability.

But according to this view, the architect is not historically concerned with Efficiency. And, it would seem that Target is not concerned with Beauty or Utility. How can we reconcile these differences? I believe the answer lies in equations.

Sustainability/Durability + Efficiency + Utility = Profitability/Beauty

Saturday, December 29

The Week in Photos






















David Altmejd, The Settler, an awesome sculpture at the NEW SPERTUS Jewish museum























SAMIA MIRZA working in her studio. This star shaped sculpture is one of her really great works, the shape is just right and the colors are candy yummy puke. When Chicago artist, teacher and professor art SAIC , Francis Whitehead described these sculpture she said they would sound like air it you hit them and not like a block.











BERNARD WILLIAMS AT THOMAS MCCORMICK GALLERY!!!







DJ SPOOKY !!!



Betty Rymer Gallery, is a great little space inside the School of the Art Institute and worth checking out.

Friday, December 28

Ten QUEER Art TRENDS

For Erik Roldan's blog THINK PINK, I wrote a brief top ten queer art trends, check it out.

Here is a sample:

10. Camp Queer : Devine & John Waters ( they put the camp in campers)

9. Queer Factory : Andy Warhol (His record label launched the Velvet
Underground. He produced Interview Magazine. He wore a snap on silver
tupee, had crazy parties and filmed John Delasando getting a blowjob )

8.Queering the Obvious: Jasper Johns/ Robert Raushenberg/Bob Indiana /
Frank O'Hara

7.Queerly Essential: John Cage/ Merce Cunningham/ Black Mountain
College/ Buck Minster Fuller ( John Cage is arguably the most
important American Artist)

6.Queer Unscene: Willa Cather/ Emily Dickenson/ Elizabeth Bishop
(None would call themselves queer but these three women were spoke
softly and changed the whole art game)

5.Queer Divinity: Michaelangelo ( Know in his time as Il Divino ( The
Divine) too bad he never met John Waters

4.Queer Imagination: Walt Whitman/ W.H. Auden ( There is the sun, the
moon and Imagination-- the third planet.)

3.Queer Leader: Oscar Wilde/Schubert ( Glorious and gorgeous geeks--
they invented dandy and it is still hot)

2.Queer Empathy: Sapho ( Long aftert the birth she gave birth to being human)

1.Bringing Sexy Back: Kritios and Nesiotes ( sculpted the hottest boy around)

Monday, December 24

Glocalize and Mobalife

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to friends and readers around the globe. I am very grateful to live in a time where I reach so many people and live a more active life. As the year closes, it is a good time to look back.

John Powers covered his TOP 10 Cultural Trends 2007. So I wanted to dig a little bit into what some artists in Chicago are thinking about at the wrap up of 2007.

I spoke with the Chicago-based artist, choreographer, dancer, and teacher Paul Sanasardo . Mr. Sanasardo is a respected American artist and has been working in the arts for well over 50 years. For his 80th birthday he will celebrate by launching a new performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

We spoke about possibilites for digital visual arts, looking at what is happening with digital music and video. As a dancer and painter Mr. Sanasardo is aware of the differences between entertainment and performance art.

He said, "When you perform, you keep one eye on the public,but the other eye is for one person in the audience who truly understands your art."

In one sense, artists are sales people-- they are selling themselves and their creative vision to an audience of consumers. But this one aspect cannot take over the deeper more authentic side of artists which is connected to values greater than themselves. In short Mr. Sanasardo said:

ARTISTS ARE 20% WHORES AND 80% SAINTS.

Saturday, December 1

Top Ten Lists for 2007



One of my guilty pleasure is top ten lists. But who doesn't love them? So here are my lists for 2007.

Top Ten Chicago Exhibitions 2007

10. Interiority at the Hyde Park Art Center
9. Young Chicago at The Art Institute of Chicago
8. Cosmophilia
7.Collection Highlights and Alexander Calder in Focus at the MCA
6. Allora and Calzadilla at the Renn
5.Cezanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard at The Art Institute of Chicago
4.Melanie Schiff at Kavi Gupta
3.New Narratives: Contemporary Art from India at the Chicago Cultural Center
2. CHRONIC: Handmade Nightmares in Red, Yellow & Blue at Monique Meloche gallery
1. Rhona Hoffman 30 years

Congratulations to Rhona Hoffman for having the past exhibition in the past year and one of the best spaces to exhibit work in the city.



The Best Work of Art on Exhibition in Chicago

Felix Gonzalez-Torres at the Art Institute of Chicago

Thursday, November 22

A FINE DISREGARD


Happy Thanksgiving. I think is important to create space and place for self-reflection, where we can bring the diverse pieces of ourselves together into meaningful wholes. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge one thing I am very grateful for.

I discovered the art historian Kirk Varnedoe while I lived in Princeton and he taught the History of Art at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

He is a thinker of big ideas, sometimes at the expense of more refined and subtle scholarship, but he left a lasting impact on me.

One of his ideas that he passed down to Robert Storr (his predecessor at the Museum of Modern Art in New York) the experience of art comes before the ideas in art. First the senses than all the thinking.


He was apposed to "isms" and refused strict interpretations, he thought art was open ended and I agree.

After a long battle with cancer he passed away in 2003.

"Given one minute more to either parse critical theory or stammer
toward the qualities of the individual work of art, I will use the
time for the latter."

-J. Kirk T. Varnedoe (1946–2003)

Sunday, November 18

PINK MOUNTAINS


Drawing from the periphery of everyday life, John Parot makes ordinary objects interesting through unusual transformation. The top five Google searches: sex, god, jobs, music and a rotating cast of celebrities, are recurrent favorites in Parot’s work,stems from everyday experience and the way he make sense of it. Nodding to his heroes from the Velvet Underground, John Waters and project runway, the imagery is at once familiar, but the core of the work lies in what is deeply personal. In his collages meticulous pen lines of tribal tattoos, textiles, African patterns collided with personal perennial motifs, pink triangles, boys lips, hair. Taking on new physicality in wood and foam as landscapes, street signs or mountains . The line jumps off the page and become a drawing in space, soft blue and hot pink painted yarn cruise objects of gay night-life: Cases of Diet-Coke, vodka, porn, obsolete computer disks, VHS, Polaroids, candles, a tape player and mirrors. The installation is it’s instantly striking but given time it slowly reveals humor, puns and ironic wit

CONGRATULATIONS MELANIE SCHIFF!

































Melanie Schiff, one of Chicago's best young photographers, will be in the 2008 Whitney Biennial!

Congratulations girl you are white hot and your show "Underwater Photographer" at Kavi Gupta was awesome:)


"Sleeping Boy" 2002
"Spit" 2006

QUEER ARCHITECTURE: THE SPACE OF SHADOWS


(Eugene Bavinger House, Norman, Oklahoma, 1950 by Queer Architect Bruce Goff)

Robert MacNeill is a working architect in Chicago. He has worked for Wesley Wei in Philadelphia and is currently an independent thinker and activist. He was the director and designer for "The Cowboy and the Pegasus," an exhibition for Queer Fest Midwest in August 2007.

I have know Rob for years and we have collaborated on many projects together. He is fiercely independent and has a fresh view on the world. Below is our conversation on the state of DESIGN.

JP:What is architecture and design?

RM: Design is making sense of the patterns in the three types of human activity: labor (biological), work (creative), and action (political). We make spaces for these patterns that reflect the activities, and at the same time enhance the experience of acting them out.

JP:What do you see for the future of architecture? Will it change in the digital age?

RM:I think the changes will be fewer than most people think. Let's not flatter ourselves into thinking that we can overthrow the whole history of architecture.

JP:You designed the Queer Fest Midwest art exhibition for 2007, can you talk about the project?

RM:Queer space exists, although it is hard to describe exactly. On one hand, it is formed by things like music and street culture. But it can also be defined by a set of spatial conditions; when I think of queer space I think of shadow and veiling.

JP: Why shadows? I thought being queer was like coming into the light, and coming out for the public to see?

RM: In the modern movement, architects hoped to achieve a transparency - both literal and symbolic - that would eliminate dark spaces, the sublime, and ambiguity. Think of the Phillip Johnson's Glass House or the Farnsworth House; what is it like to live in a glass box with limited boundary between interior and exterior? Queer space is directly opposed to transparent space. It is about refuge and fantasy, limited visibility. There is a definite transition between interior and exterior. This is equally true of the queer body/self. The queer self is never fully revealed to the public. We cast ourselves in shadow. We retreat into the interior.

JP: Like going back into the closet?

RM: The closet has not been eliminated. Maybe we should embrace it. It represents our interior lives.

JP:What do shadows give us?

RM: Shadows are like closets, physically a place to store things, a place to get away and a place for self-refection. And as queer people we like the shadows as a space to be ourselves.

JP: Can you give me an example of queer space?

RM: One example is the store front, which is a window onto the world inside but is also blocked from the world outside. It is temporary, theatrical, mask-like. It does not reveal with accuracy what lies beyond. Store front windows display dreams or fantastic worlds. They are some of the queerest spaces.

JP:You worked on a project to design a pill carrier to honor 20 years of HIV/AIDS activism. Can you talk about how you came to that project?

RM:I thought of the project as a way to give voice to the HIV/AIDS community. It is a very simple gesture that turns the taking of pills into a generative process. Plant seeds are sown as part of taking HIV medication.

There is still a great silence in the HIV/AIDS community. This project gives voice by taking back public space - in this case, with red flowers that appear in unexpected places.

A new map of the city will emerge.

Saturday, November 17

ON TEXT PAINTING






























What is text art?

It is easier to address what it is not: compared to narrative painting or historical painting or portrait painting: text painting non-figurative, it dislocates or disrupts the image and most importantly it can displace the visual.

Text Painting is a genre of painting and is part of the larger group of text art. Lawrence Weiner has a retrospective at the Whitney, but he is a sculptor who uses text as his material.

I asked the chicago-based artist esteban to share some insight into text painting.

JP: Lately you have been making more text painting, why is that?

ES: Text painting has the right spirit, it can be very sarcastic and funny, it has a beautiful simplicity to express huge issues.

JP: Give me an example.

ES: Here is Chicago we had a pretty bad storm a couple weeks ago. At first it started small, drizzling and raining-- but it was late and soon the storm exploded. I climbed into bed and listened to it thundering outside. It is very humbling to think how large nature is. I looked at the storm and just thought, it could destroy me now or the whole neighborhood and it wouldn't change much. When nature shows herself she is more grand than we can imagine. I was thinking about the hurricanes and how fragile we are.

JP: It is very humbling to see the true force of nature. Can art show us something deeper about the world?

ES: No, not deeper, maybe different. It can be a fresh perspective. During that storm I thought of Jupiter, the largest planet. The earth is smaller than most of Jupiter's moons, you can fit countless earths inside Jupiter. And suddenly I thought what a storm on Jupiter must be like. It was unimaginable.


Thursday, November 15

MASSIVE QUEER CHANGE




In the spirit of change I asked the architect Robert MacNeill to make a proposal for the twenty year anniversary of AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power , ACT UP. His proposal is beautiful simplicitiy:

------------------

Seed-distributing pill case for HIV medication

Proposed: a cluster of pods in silicon rubber for the organization and distribution of pill-based medications for HIV-positive people.

The system includes a removable paper insert that slides into the cluster. It may be personalized with writing to identify pill types, dosages, and times of day. Pills are removed from the pods through perforated tabs in the paper insert. When removed, these tabs serve as a reminder that the enclosed medication has been taken.

The biodegradable tabs are embedded with plant seeds and nutrients that can be freely distributed throughout the city. The result is the dissemination of one of more highly-visible plant types. Bold red flowers begin to appear in unexpected places.

The taking of medication becomes a generative process that gives new visibility to the HIV positive community; in time, a new map of the city emerges.

------------------

Inflation is rising, the value of the dollar dropping and the sub-prime mortgage problems piling up. The forecast for the U.S. economy is bleak. American companies face cutting costs to survive as global competition becomes more fierce. Although research and development sector seems like the first choice for downsizing the message seems clear. Research and the spirit of experimentation is the life blood new ways of thinking. Here in the "New World" our horn of plenty that made America a great nation is ingenuity. Mortgage loan mistakes are the tip of the iceberg and U.S. economy has many more hard hits to come, wide-spread credit card debt might be next. The next decade will belong to emerging markets and ingenuity will win the day.

The message is: Innovate or die.

Innovation is often at the intersection of mathematical logic, scientific questioning, and creative thinking.

One of the most innovative ideas of 2007 comes from Bruce Mau: MASSIVE CHANGE.

Rule 1 from Mau's Incomplete Manifesto:

1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

Tuesday, November 13

THINK PINK: THERE IS AN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM



Erik Roldan invited me to contribute a weekly entry to his new blog .


Currently, Rejnowska and Polera is busy developing a report on the challenges and opportunities that emerging artists face in Chicago. In December I will put the first draft of our research online, but in the mean time I want to weigh in on some of the big issues.

Erik requested that my weekly entry be about "queer art" , I happily agreed to his request.

The elephant in the room: what is queer art?

Why should I write about queer art? One reason is that queer art is a mystery. Writing a weekly column is a way to ask some of the many difficult questions that do not have easy answers. To engage in active reflect and make thoughtful reduction to all the information out there about contemporary art.

This blog is about art in the present which is also about art in the everyday, the presence of art in our lives.

To kick off my weekly column I want to hear different ideas : What do you think queer art is?

Queer art for me is work that comes from, contributes to or is part of the queer community. Queer community has American roots in Queer Nation, ACT UP, Gay liberation or even the civil right movement. The comraderie and friendships that arose in early queer activists built one of the great support system in recent history.

The history is complicated and has many turns, but what we are left with is a lot of heritage. Tied to American history because for the past 300 years people have been coming to this America from all over the world. Each different group bringing gifts of different culture, language, religion and ways of seeing the world.

Diversity is one of America's great strengths. Accepting diversity is also something we can improve on.

I want to protect the heritage of the queer community, with its many customs and ways of seeing the world.

And why focus on Queer Art? Because it can show us what is. It reveals a truth for who we were at a moment. It is the presence of mind. Art is sensual first, it expresses the senses at work, the taste, touch and feel and from the sensation comes an explosion of ideas and complexity.

Helen Vendler said "The arts present the whole uncensored human person--in emotional, physical, and intellectual being, and in single and collective form--as no other branch of human accomplishment does."

Ultimately, I hope my entries on queer art can begin to establish a cultural patrimony that many more people will add to.


My first entry will be on John Parot

So let me hear your thoughts.

------------------------

Dmitri Peskov and John Lehrer
in Extended Views,
Dance Chicago 2007
November 7
Athenaeum Theater

Thursday, August 30



Study for Purple Wolf
Terrence Koh
2005
pencil and wax on paper, 9" x 14"
courtesy of Ezra Getzler

The Cowboy and the Pegasus, an exhibition for Queer Fest Midwest

August 25, 2007
Pulaski Field House
Chicago, IL


Curatorial Statement:

Queer does not have gender, age, skin color or sex. As we see it, sex as a subject of many artworks is the product of a stuffy puritan approach to sexuality and physiology in the American culture in general. We take the word queer very liberally and envision an encompassing queer community, a rainbow coalition of diverse voices.

We believe gender and sexuality are temporal and shift throughout our lives. With the exhibition for Queer Fest Midwest we hope to challenge any easy interpretation of sexuality.

The artwork presented in the show “The Cowboy and The Pegasus" does not resolve any contradictions for us but rather pushes us to examine the contradictions and sort them out.

We are honored to display a variety of artists, including Sadie Benning, Bruce La Bruce, Kean O’Brian, Terence Koh and others, whose work paves the way for certain truths. They show us that they dualities of black/white, top/bottom, dominant/submissive, cowboy/cowgirl, blind us to the rich constellations of life.
 
The artist team Superm, a collaboration between Brian Kenny and Slava Mogutin, focuses on humorous, graphic, spontaneous and challenging new ways to face myths and stereotypes. Funny, sexy, ridiculous videos by Latham Zearfoss and Dylan Mira refuse answers and give alternatives instead. In contrast, the self-reflective work of Regina Mamou seems to say there is a lot of suffering in this world and art alone can not change it. But it can help us to live a more active life.

Our task was to make the event different than all others, to confirm that queer is not edgy at all.

Wednesday, August 29

documentation of the exhibition:










installation view










installation view










installation view










installation view










Super 8 1/2
Bruce La Bruce
1994
VHS, 94min
collection of the artist










Ryan Revisited & Self Portrait in Chair
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
2007
c-prints, 18" x 24" each
courtesy of Evoy Gallery, NYC










Joshua and Joshua Tree - ATOA
Leah DeVun
2007
c-prints, 20" x 24" each
collection of the artist










Closer Look
Taschka Turnquist
2006
c-prints, 9" x 13" each
collection of the artist










Mother May I
S.I.R.
2007
archival inkjet prints, 10' x 10'
courtesy of the artist










performance by S.I.R.










I Want to Put You On (series)
Sean Fader
2007
archival inkjet prints, 54" x 36" each
collection of the artist










Deep Fry Your Soul
Samia Mirza
2006
stuffed animals, eggs, flour, oil











A Night to Remember
Mark Chamberlain
2006
watercolor on paper, 15" x 17"
collection of Daniel S. Berger, MD

&

Baby Wanna Make Out
Justin Marshall
2007
c-print, 20" x 30"
courtesy of Thomas Robertello Gallery












Shoot No 5 ('zine)
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
2007
laser prints, 5.5" x 4.25"
courtesy of Evoy Gallery, NYC

&

self portrait
Matthew Hilshorst
2007
six plastic tablecloths, 30" x 54"
collection of the artist













Pink, etc.
Zack Stiglicz
2007
Acrylic on Canvas, 48" x 36"
collection of the artist













Wake Up Paperboy!, Pay by Billz Jockstrap Dawgs, Teen Werewolf Workout, Curses, Hexes, & Boots, and Ninja Independence Day
Superm (Slava Mogutin + Brian Kenny)
1999-2005
DVD
collection of the artist

Monday, August 27

complete list of works:


2D & 3D WORKS

Untitled
Mike Andrews
2006
multimedia works on paper (4), sizes vary
collection of the artist

Untitled
CK Callahan
2007
embossed paper, various sizes
collection of Rejnowska & Polera

A Night to Remember
Mark Chamberlain
2006
watercolor on paper, 15" x 17"
collection of Daniel S. Berger, MD

Joshua
Leah DeVun
c-print, 20" x 24"
collection of the artist

Joshua Tree - ATOA
Leah DeVun
c-print, 20" x 24"
collection of the artist

I Want to Put You On, Gus (with Maxi)
Sean Fader
archival inkjet print, 54" x 36"
collection of the artist

I Want to Put You On
Sean Fader
archival inkject print, 54" x 36"
collection of the artist

self portrait
Matthew Hilshorst
2007
six plastic tablecloths, 30" x 54"

Study for Purple Wolf
Terrence Koh
2005
pencil and wax on paper, 9" x 14"
collection of Ezra Getzler

Baby Wanna Make Out
Justin Marshall
2007
c-print, 20" x 30"
courtesy of Thomas Robertello Gallery

Untitled
Grant Schexnider
2007
oil on canvas
courtesy of Thomas Robertello Gallery

Ryan Revisited
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
2007
c-print, 18" x 14"
courtesy of Evoy Gallery, NYC

Self Portrait in Chair
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
2007
c-print, 18" x 14"
courtesy of Evoy Gallery, NYC

Mother May I
S.I.R.
2007
archival inkjet prints and installation, 10' x 10'
courtesy of the artist

Bear Bare
Zack Stiglicz
2007
acrylic on canvas, 60" x 36"
collection of the artist

Labryinth
Zack Stiglicz
2007
acrylic on canvas, 48" x 36"

Pink, etc.
Zack Stiglicz
2007
acrylic on canvas, 48" x 36"

Three
Zack Stiglicz
2007
acrylic on canvas, 48" x 36"

Untitled (Anus)
Ryan Tacata
2007
fiber
courtesy of Tulip Toy Gallery, Chicago

Closer Look
Taschka Turnquist
2006
c-prints (2), 9" x 13" each
collection of the artist



FILM & VIDEO

Wake Up Paperboy!
Superm (Slava Mogutin + Brian Kenny)
2005
DVD
collection of the artist

Pay My Billz Jockstrap Dawgs
Superm (Slava Mogutin + Brian Kenny)
2005
DVD
collection of the artist

Teen Werewolf Workout
Superm (Slava Mogutin + Brian Kenny)
2005
DVD
collection of the artist

Curses, Hexes, & Boots
Superm (Slava Mogutin + Brian Kenny)
2005
DVD
collection of the artist

Ninja Independence Day
Superm (Slava Mogutin + Brian Kenny)
1999
DVD
collection of the artist

Me and Rubyfruit
Sadie Benning
1990
VHS, 5 min 30 sec
courtesy of Video Databank

Super 8 1/2
Bruce La Bruce
1994
VHS, 94 min
collection of the artist

The Raspberry Reich
Bruce La Bruce
2004
DVD, 90 min
collection of the artist

A Call and An Offering
Dylan Mira and Latham Zearfoss
2006
DVD, 26 min
collection of the artist

Four Way Family Portrait
Latham Zearfoss
2005
DVD, 26 min
collection of the artist

To Have, To Hold, To Violate:
The Making of Amberdoll

Amber Hawk Swanson
2007
DVD, 17 min
collection of the artist

German Song
Sadie Benning
1995
VHS, 5 min
courtesy of Video Databank

Black
Charles Lum
DVD, 5 min
collection of Barbara De Genevieve

Pull
Regina Mamou
2006
DVD, 4 min 10 sec
collection of the artist

I Deserve This
Regina Mamou
2006
DVD, 4 min 9 sec
collection of the artist

Trying to Remember
Regina Mamou
DVD, 5 min 17 sec
collection of the artist

Man Enough
Kean O'Brian
2007
DVD
collection of the artist



PERFORMANCE

S.I.R.

related images:



press coverage of Terrence Koh's Study for Purple Wolf



press coverage of Superm video installation (Brian Kenny and Slava Mogutin)



window display for Queer Fest Midwest at Tulip Toy Gallery by artist Esteban Schimpf



Erik Roldon, the organizer of Queer Fest Midwest



officers German Gomez and Gloria Gomez protected the artworks



part of the team who made the exhibition possible