Neoqueer focuses on current trends in queer artistic production, featuring photographs, paintings, sculptures, performance, web-based work, videos, and works in other media made by 45 emerging and mid-career artists. The exhibiting artists include: Ron Athey, Robert Beck, Nayland Blake, Kaucyila Brooke, Tania Bruguera, Julie Burleigh, Loren Cameron, Tee Corinne, E. G. Crichton, Alejandro Diaz, Laurie Toby Edison, Daphne Fitzpatrick, John Groo, Barbara Hammer, Harmony Hammond, Lyle Ashton Harris, Karen Heagle, Bruce LaBruce, Glenn Ligon, Karin Luner, Attila Richard Lukacs, Kevin McCarty, Sallie McCorkle, Ann P. Meredith, Carrie Moyer (Dyke Action Machine), James Nadeau, Alexandra Opie, Catherine Opie, Uzi Parnes, Mary Patten, Sheila Pepe, Danica Phelps, Ernesto Pujol, Adam Putnam, Robert Repinski, David Small, Alex Solis, Mary Ellen Strom, Toxic Titties, Carmelita Tropicana, Ela Troyano, Del LaGrace Volcano, John Waters, Patrick Webb, and Jonathan Weinberg.
Building on the foundations laid by important exhibitions like In a Different Light (University Art Museum, Berkeley, 1995) and Gender Fucked (CoCA, Seattle, 1996), neoqueer explores the complexities of contemporary queer art production by offering a broad sampling of work made by queer artists, be they gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer-identified heterosexuals. Neoqueer also begs a series of questions that pertain to queer artistic production at this specific historical moment: What does it mean to produce queer art today? Does the phrase “queer art” necessitate queer content? If so, who defines what constitutes queer content? If an artist identifies as queer, is his, her, or its work inherently queer? Must queer art production be blatantly political, as was often argued in the 1980s and 1990s? Or can and should we be satisfied with literal, metaphoric, or symbolic queer content? How does a queer transgendered body further the issues raised by artists who explored gender deconstruction that was so prevalent in 1980s and 1990s artistic production? What sort of commonality, if any, might exist among the diverse group of artists featured in the show? If all these artists are queer-identified, but their priorities, agendas, hopes and despairs differ radically, then what does this do to definitions of “queerness”?
Neoqueer will open to the Seattle public on February 7, 2004; an opening reception will take place at CoCA on Saturday, February 7 from 8:00 PM until midnight. This exhibition coincides with the 92nd annual conference of the College Art Association, which will be held Feb 18-21, 2004, at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, and a special opening will be held on Friday, February 20, from 8:00 PM until midnight for the members of the Queer Caucus for Art and the College Art Association.
Curators
The exhibition has been curated by David Lloyd Brown, Maura Reilly, and Craig Houser. David Lloyd Brown is a visual artist, educator, and Coordinator for Graduate and Academic Programs at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He has exhibited widely and serves on the Advisory Board of the Artists Foundation, Boston. He was the former art editor for the Gay and Lesbian Review. Maura Reilly is the Elizabeth A. Sackler Curator for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. She is the author of Le Vice à la Mode: Gustave Courbet and the Vogue for Lesbianism in Nineteenth-Century France (forthcoming from Pennsylvania State University Press). She is also the Co-Chair (with Jim Saslow) of the Queer Caucus for Art. Craig Houser, a Collaborative Programs Research Fellow at the City University of New York, is a freelance critic and curator. He was formerly an Assistant Curator at the Guggenheim Museum, where he organized exhibitions on the work of Rachel Whiteread and Jeff Koons, and served as Editor in the Publications Department of College Art Association.
The Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle serves the Pacific Northwest as a catalyst and forum for the advancement, development, and understanding of contemporary art. CoCA provides opportunities for the art audience in the region to view new and experimental artwork firsthand in exhibitions that show the work of international, national, and local artists. CoCA is committed to exploring issues, media, and concepts relevant to the world and times in which we live. Site-specific installations, performance art, multi-media and multi-disciplinary programs, and gallery exhibitions of visual art are all within the focus of the organization. CoCA’s galleries serve as an artistic proving ground resulting in programming that is experimental in nature -- an important distinction between CoCA and other visual arts institutions and organizations in the region.
Contact person and information: Don Hudgins, Managing Director, Center on Contemporary Art, 1420 11th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122 voice phone: (206) 728-1980, http://cocaseattle.org/