Event
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Root Division
June 8 - June 25, 2016Info
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http://www.rootdivision.org/
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(415) 863-7668
Reception
June 11, 2016 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Curated by Amy Cancelmo & billy ocallaghan ISO (In Search Of) Queer Gods features 16 contemporary queer artists whose work mines historical religious iconography and responds to diverse representations of homosexual, transgender and non-binary content that has been preserved through the mythology of world religion. Responding to the curators’ research based call with a diverse range of historical inquiry and artistic practices, the artists in this exhibition explore iconography from Aztec, Norse, Bahamian, Afro-Cuban, Greek and Chinese mythology, as well as the stories of Hindu Gods, Sufi saints, Islamic Jinn, Biblical figures and Pagan Gods, all through a queer lens. The historical precedence that each artist has unearthed affirms the presence of queerness in cultural and spiritual storytelling, long before clinical terms were used as divisive and discriminatory categories. The works featured in this exhibition are history lessons, personal explorations, and queer utopian divinations.
Accompanied by an inclusive artist zine, “queerer: the gods sure are queer volume 2,” this exhibition and publication offer the opportunity to look back and examine the preservation (and erasures) of queer representation through artifact and mythology, and to look forward to how these histories might manifest visually and conceptually in contemporary queer experience. Participating Artists: Corey Brown Craig Calderwood Gerardo Castro Orlando de la Garza Nicki Green Julz Hale Mary Dorian Katz Gardener Miller Shayne Punim Carol Queen Mohsin Shafi Michael Starkman William Ulrich Charlie Watts Angie Wilson Meng Yu This project is presented as part of the National Queer Arts Festival with support from Queer Cultural Center.