Kickstarter

QUEERING SEX @ Human Resources, Los Angeles

June 24 - July 2, 2011

Queering Sex is a performance and video exhibition that features the work of artists who are dealing with gender and sexuality. This cross-generational, trans-historical video program explores sex and sexuality via ideas and actions related to performance, and thereby highlighting a relationship between performativity and identity. The exhibition includes the participation of over 40 artists from Los Angeles, New York, and abroad.

A word from co-organizer and artist Kathryn Garcia:

Nowadays everything is queer; there are very few new frontiers of queer-dom yet to be explored. Probably because we’ve been there already. Masculinity, femininity yeah we got that; we know the two from top to bottom, left to right, up down all around, and from both sides. Men adopt the feminine, women adopt the feminine, men adopt the masculine, women adopt the masculine - and now we’ve finally gotten to the point where we are adopting children. Milk won the Oscar, James Franco kissed Sean Penn and probably Klaus Biesenbach as well or so the rumor goes. The Kids are All Right is all anyone could talk about for a while (although the film retreats safely back into heteronormative stereotypes). Until A.L Steiner dropped the bomb and shot a Community Action Center art "porn” and showed it at a Chelsea gallery, then THAT was all anyone could talk about. AA Bronson curates a “queer ” Film Series at MoMA with no womyn in it and dykes start grumbling, then we have the queers fighting amongst themselves for inclusion and so on and so forth, a not-so-welcome throwback to the F.H.A.R . To make a very long story short – we’ve made some progress, we’re doing it – we’re here and we’re queer. But perhaps the only thing queer about being queer at this point is the actual word “queer” and what does that mean anymore anyway when uh, it’s all supposedly okay now?!! The kids are all right, let’s go bare back in the mountains --- We’re mainstream folks! G A S P --- Normalcy oh N to the O. PANIC --- Should dykes start fucking men and queens vice versa to break out of the neat little categories we’ve been placed in (or created for ourselves) and regain our queer-NESS? Because at this point with all of the stereotypes in place, a queer fucking the opposite sex is what really seems queer. The point is what we’re doing today is no longer just queer (yes there’s a little bit of that ) but let’s be honest, queer has become so prevalent that even my straight friends qualify. What we are as a whole is POLY: meaning more than one, and that’s really all we’ve ever been, because honestly it’s about inclusiveness, not separation, not binaries, we’re not Queer because they’re Normal, to us it is all valid (as long as it’s dirty). So we hope that you will join us at Human Resources to explore the multifarious meanings of the word SEX.

Sincerely,

KG

 

AMAZING PERFORMANCE LINE-UP:

June 24   FINE ART UNION (Norway)

June 25   MATT GREENE (Los Angeles)

                TALL PAUL

                 U.S. Premiere of "9 Days of Cry Out" by TOSHINORI TANAKA

June 26   SPHINX (New York)

July 2      DAWN KASPER (Los Angeles)

 

PLUS MANY MORE SURPRISES and VIDEOS by:

Theo Adams, Skip Arnold, CHOKRA, Coco Dolle, Zackary Drucker, Juan Pablo Echeverri, Fine Art Union, Gordon Flores, Kathryn Garcia, Paul Gellman, Katy Grannan, Wynne Greenwood, David Jones, Dawn Kasper, Brian Kenny, Rosalie Knox, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Benjamin Alexander Huseby and Lars Laumann, Bruce La Bruce, Danielle Levitt, Lovett/Codagnone, Manon, Nadja Verena Marcin, Lucas Michael, Slava Mogutin, Tameka Norris, ORLAN, Maria Petschnig, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Hunter Reynolds, Natalie Rodgers, Michael Rudnick, Ira Sachs, Rafael Sanchez, Carolee Schneemann, Scottee, Michael Sharkey, Jack Smith, Matthew Stone, Toshinori Tanaka, Tobaron Waxman, Marnie Weber, Samuel White, Martha Wilson, Rona Yefman... and more!

Queering Sex considers how artists across generations are using sex as a way to understand and explore what lies at the core of one’s identity. Among the works included are a select group of videos created during the sexual revolution of the 1970s and the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s- both extremely significant decades that propelled the advent of identity and queer politics. We are intent on bringing together a disparate group of artists to open up the critical and institutional discourses surrounding these ideas. Instead of proposing one strict agenda, the exhibition’s inter-generational and cross-cultural approach allows there to be room for numerous points of view. Inherent to the very nature of the content, oftentimes the works in this exhibition directly or indirectly challenge normative binaries, patriarchal institutions and other systems of control that consciously or unconsciously affect us.

The title of the exhibition is meant to expand upon queer notions of sex and challenge the idea of queer vs normal. For years, the word could not have been used without derogatory connotations. Even before it was reclaimed by the gay community as a sign of defiance, it was also used to define anything that was considered deviant, outsider and/or abnormal. According to Judith Butler, queer is “a site of collective contestation, the point of departure for a set of historical reflections and futural imaginings”. In Queering Sex, with its inter-generational approach, we are positing that queer exists on multiple planes of non-linearity and is beyond hetero and homo-normative distinctions. Queer is an idea that is constantly evolving, changing, and adapting to its current climate.

As a whole, Queering Sex proposes the question, what does it mean to be “queer” nowadays?

Your donations would help us bring this diverse program QUEERING SEX to Los Angeles. We need to secure funds for international flights, equipment rental, artists' expenses related to performances, transportation, printing the exhibition program, maintenance of the space, and promotional materials. Human Resources is a non-profit organization that is run by volunteers - we are all passionate about this project and hope that you are too!

Please check the website for updates and information about the performances, as well as artists interviews: www.humanresourcesla.com