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.