BOSTON LGBTQIA ARTIST ALLIANCE
From 2015-2017, I was Director of the Boston LGBTQIA Artist Alliance (BLAA), a volunteer artist-run organization. Providing artist opportunities and organizing community-building events, BLAA aimed to elevate the work of and provide resources to Boston LGBTQIA artists. The aim was to bring LGBTQIA artists together around art to create conversations that support their work, and that many felt were absent in the larger Boston arts community. BLAA also fostered a space where alternatives to mainstream LGBTQIA culture could be explored and centered.
Our work took the form primarily of a curatorial collective- we organized open call exhibitions at galleries around the city of Boston addressing various themes. as well as potlucks, artist talks, workshops and other gatherings- all with the goal of building community and empowering LGBTQIA artists.
Below are a selection of exhibitions I organized and/or curated- for more information, visit the Boston LGBTQIA Artist Alliance's website.
From 2015-2017, I was Director of the Boston LGBTQIA Artist Alliance (BLAA), a volunteer artist-run organization. Providing artist opportunities and organizing community-building events, BLAA aimed to elevate the work of and provide resources to Boston LGBTQIA artists. The aim was to bring LGBTQIA artists together around art to create conversations that support their work, and that many felt were absent in the larger Boston arts community. BLAA also fostered a space where alternatives to mainstream LGBTQIA culture could be explored and centered.
Our work took the form primarily of a curatorial collective- we organized open call exhibitions at galleries around the city of Boston addressing various themes. as well as potlucks, artist talks, workshops and other gatherings- all with the goal of building community and empowering LGBTQIA artists.
Below are a selection of exhibitions I organized and/or curated- for more information, visit the Boston LGBTQIA Artist Alliance's website.
HYDRA EFFECT
The Boston LGBTQIA Artist Alliance’s (BLAA) exhibition, Hydra Effect, opened June 5th 2017 at the Midway Studios Gallery in Fort Point, and featured the work of 15 Boston area artists working in a range of media.
Hydra Effect was an exploration and celebration of the cultural value and significance of the arts in the current political climate, and a testament to the determination and resilience of LGBTQIA artists who have continued making work over the years despite hostile conditions. Harking back to the “NEA Four” and the conservative establishment’s attack on arts funding in the 80s/90s, the exhibition anticipated the imminent future as a historical moment in which the arts would once again directly challenged. History repeats itself. This multimedia exhibition served as a platform for LGBTQIA artists to engage with this moment in their own unique and distinctive voices. Work ranged from revolutionary to visionary, from angry to celebratory, from local to global.
How do we make art when there are urgent political crises taking place around us? What makes art important and vital, to ourselves and to others? When our resources are cut off, how do we combine forces and propagate our ideas? How do we respond when threatened? Overall, the show functioned as part of a larger collective conversation about the necessity of the arts in society.
Artists: Lauren Alindogan, Dave J Bermingham, Leah Corbett, Nicholas Costopolous, Jamieson Edson, Ena Kantardzic, Topher Lineberry, Jill Ma, Kolin Perry, Joey Phoenix, Mary Provenzano, Renee Silva, Oona Taper, Dennis Tsai, and Abigail Wamboldt
The Boston LGBTQIA Artist Alliance’s (BLAA) exhibition, Hydra Effect, opened June 5th 2017 at the Midway Studios Gallery in Fort Point, and featured the work of 15 Boston area artists working in a range of media.
Hydra Effect was an exploration and celebration of the cultural value and significance of the arts in the current political climate, and a testament to the determination and resilience of LGBTQIA artists who have continued making work over the years despite hostile conditions. Harking back to the “NEA Four” and the conservative establishment’s attack on arts funding in the 80s/90s, the exhibition anticipated the imminent future as a historical moment in which the arts would once again directly challenged. History repeats itself. This multimedia exhibition served as a platform for LGBTQIA artists to engage with this moment in their own unique and distinctive voices. Work ranged from revolutionary to visionary, from angry to celebratory, from local to global.
How do we make art when there are urgent political crises taking place around us? What makes art important and vital, to ourselves and to others? When our resources are cut off, how do we combine forces and propagate our ideas? How do we respond when threatened? Overall, the show functioned as part of a larger collective conversation about the necessity of the arts in society.
Artists: Lauren Alindogan, Dave J Bermingham, Leah Corbett, Nicholas Costopolous, Jamieson Edson, Ena Kantardzic, Topher Lineberry, Jill Ma, Kolin Perry, Joey Phoenix, Mary Provenzano, Renee Silva, Oona Taper, Dennis Tsai, and Abigail Wamboldt
CODED
BLAA partnered with Lesley University for Coded, a group exhibition that ran at the University’s VanDernoot Gallery from January 31 – March 4, 2017.
Coded explored the unique role language has played in queer culture as it has developed and flourished since the 19th century. From the outset, coded language has allowed connections and communities to form among gender and sexual minorities in the midst of a hostile dominant culture. As queer culture expanded, shifting and splintering into different subgroups, slang became a way for GSM-identified people to find others who shared similar interests and ideals within the larger milieu of queer spaces. And today, as LGBTQIA identities become more accepted and integrated into mainstream society, language serves as a way to subvert sexist, transphobic, heterosexist, and racist tropes in American popular culture.
Artists: Joe Balestraci, Carl Bowlby, Tynan Byrne, William Chambers, Ma Chih Ching (Dill), Oliver Coley, Jamieson Edson, Jeremy Endo, Gordon Feng, Rixy Fernandez, Maggie Guillette, Dylan Hurwitz, Heather Kapplow, Bunny Kellam-Scott, Coe Lapossy, Jonathan Obin, Zoe Perry-Wood, Renee Silva, Evan Smith, Raleigh Strott, Kenson Truong, Sarah Washburn, Dong Wu, Anthony Young
BLAA partnered with Lesley University for Coded, a group exhibition that ran at the University’s VanDernoot Gallery from January 31 – March 4, 2017.
Coded explored the unique role language has played in queer culture as it has developed and flourished since the 19th century. From the outset, coded language has allowed connections and communities to form among gender and sexual minorities in the midst of a hostile dominant culture. As queer culture expanded, shifting and splintering into different subgroups, slang became a way for GSM-identified people to find others who shared similar interests and ideals within the larger milieu of queer spaces. And today, as LGBTQIA identities become more accepted and integrated into mainstream society, language serves as a way to subvert sexist, transphobic, heterosexist, and racist tropes in American popular culture.
Artists: Joe Balestraci, Carl Bowlby, Tynan Byrne, William Chambers, Ma Chih Ching (Dill), Oliver Coley, Jamieson Edson, Jeremy Endo, Gordon Feng, Rixy Fernandez, Maggie Guillette, Dylan Hurwitz, Heather Kapplow, Bunny Kellam-Scott, Coe Lapossy, Jonathan Obin, Zoe Perry-Wood, Renee Silva, Evan Smith, Raleigh Strott, Kenson Truong, Sarah Washburn, Dong Wu, Anthony Young
trans/draw
trans/draw was a juried exhibition conceived by BLAA artist Lenny Schnier . The work for trans/draw was selected by Brooklyn based visual artist and School of the Museum of Fine Arts alumnus, Cobi Moules. The 12 Greater Boston-based artists featured in trans/draw represent the power of drawing as a mechanism to express and reflect on the trans experience. Their practices span a variety of media, from traditional pencil on paper, to sculpture and video.
Artists: Eli Brown, Aria Carpenter, Ciaran Gaffney, Catherine Graffam, Dani Katz, Bunny Kellam-Scott, Chih Ching Ma, Jack Milligan, A.B. Miner, Mara Randolph-Merchant, Lenny Schnier, Cai Steele
trans/draw was a juried exhibition conceived by BLAA artist Lenny Schnier . The work for trans/draw was selected by Brooklyn based visual artist and School of the Museum of Fine Arts alumnus, Cobi Moules. The 12 Greater Boston-based artists featured in trans/draw represent the power of drawing as a mechanism to express and reflect on the trans experience. Their practices span a variety of media, from traditional pencil on paper, to sculpture and video.
Artists: Eli Brown, Aria Carpenter, Ciaran Gaffney, Catherine Graffam, Dani Katz, Bunny Kellam-Scott, Chih Ching Ma, Jack Milligan, A.B. Miner, Mara Randolph-Merchant, Lenny Schnier, Cai Steele
POST-GAY?
Post-Gay? was a group exhibition at the Distillery Gallery in South Boston in 2016. Post-Gay? considered the consequences of assimilation and progress. Where does growing mainstream acceptance leave more marginalized queer identities, and how do the myriad of LGBTQIA identities conceptualize themselves in the face of shifting cultural opinion? Who gets represented?
The twenty artists in this show were in contestation and dialogue with the idea of received representations, and were doing and undoing their own ideas of self and desire. Post-Gay? emphasized the inventiveness of the LGBTQIA community as thinkers and artists who have the capacity to reshape society with new propositions. There were daring and confident assertions by the artists to paint new realities and lives, to re-imagine gender and sexuality in playful, thoughtful ways.
Artists: Robert Chamberlin, Daniel Corral, Dave J Bermingham, DEAD ART STAR, Giancarlo Corbacho+Ariele Max, Jamieson Edson, Jeremy Endo, Gordon Feng, David Hannon, I.B.E., Jamezie, Liss LaFleur, Christopher Lineberry, Kirk Lorenzo, Dino Rowan, Hogan Seidel, Randi Shandroski, Warith Taha, Sarah Washburn, Zoe Perry-Wood
Post-Gay? was a group exhibition at the Distillery Gallery in South Boston in 2016. Post-Gay? considered the consequences of assimilation and progress. Where does growing mainstream acceptance leave more marginalized queer identities, and how do the myriad of LGBTQIA identities conceptualize themselves in the face of shifting cultural opinion? Who gets represented?
The twenty artists in this show were in contestation and dialogue with the idea of received representations, and were doing and undoing their own ideas of self and desire. Post-Gay? emphasized the inventiveness of the LGBTQIA community as thinkers and artists who have the capacity to reshape society with new propositions. There were daring and confident assertions by the artists to paint new realities and lives, to re-imagine gender and sexuality in playful, thoughtful ways.
Artists: Robert Chamberlin, Daniel Corral, Dave J Bermingham, DEAD ART STAR, Giancarlo Corbacho+Ariele Max, Jamieson Edson, Jeremy Endo, Gordon Feng, David Hannon, I.B.E., Jamezie, Liss LaFleur, Christopher Lineberry, Kirk Lorenzo, Dino Rowan, Hogan Seidel, Randi Shandroski, Warith Taha, Sarah Washburn, Zoe Perry-Wood