A queer legacy of graphic art and play
THINGS, curated by Bradford Nordeen, is an exhibition of objects made by artists best known for their work in journalism and media.
Drafted during moments of leisure and distributed largely through social means, the paintings, drawings, and printed matter collected in the exhibition THINGS harness the quiet radicality of their activist origins.
From the hyper-sexualized drawings and comics of filmmaker Curt McDowell, to the ‘60s revisionist wall reliefs and high gloss paintings of video artist Tom Rubnitz, through music journalist and AIDS columnist Robert Fordʼs underground Black culture ‘zine, THING — for “she knows who she is” — the tactics on display carry through to a younger generation, whose object-making bolsters or elaborates the artists’ primary, time-based practices.
Through expressive self-portraiture, utopian world making, and scene-charting ‘zine cultures, the materials assembled in THINGS evince the intensely vital and political potential of craft to reflect the world as it appears or is perceived at immensely personal moments of artistic reflection.
The exhibition includes works by Curt McDowell, Tom Rubnitz, and Robert Ford, with Seth Bogart, Rafa Esparza, Aimee Goguen, and Brontez Purnell.
THINGS is presented by ONE Gay & Lesbian National Archives and PARTICIPANT INC, in collaboration with Anthology Film Archives, Video Data Bank, and Visual AIDS.
The exhibition will be on view at:
- PARTICIPANT INC in New York from July 17–August 21, 2016
- ONE Gay & Lesbian National Archives in West Hollywood, CA from September 17–December 11, 2016
On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 at 8 p.m. at PARTICIPANT INC, filmmaker Stephen Winter will read selections of Thing, the radical queer Black underground Chicago zine for which he was a regular contributor and photographer. Tiffany Malakooti will read from a chapbook of Aimee Goguen’s poetry, “Excerpts from See Dog Read,” which she published in 2014.
Visit ONE Gay & Lesbian National Archives, and participantinc.org.