Butch Femme Planet - View Single Post

homoe · 06-12-2021, 08:45 AM

Museum Of Contemporary Art Chicago 220 E Chicago Ave. Now until Sept 5th

Are the figures in a painting by Christina Quarles taking shape or dematerializing? Solidifying or dissolving? The viewer can’t be sure. That indeterminacy reflects the artist’s sense of who she is.

A mixed-race queer woman living in Los Angeles, Quarles was the breakout discovery of the New Museum’s “Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon” group show in 2017. In that setting, her paintings seemed to be addressing gender fluidity. But, as she told me then, it’s race, not gender, that has preoccupied her since childhood. “Mom is white, Dad is Black,” she explained. “I am fair-skinned and usually seen as white by white people, but I’m seen more as mixed identity in communities of color.” Her racial profile depends on the context of the moment. “My experience is firmly rooted in whiteness and Blackness, rather than a hybrid of the two,” she said.

Four years later, with her concerns more timely than ever, Quarles, 36, is having her largest solo museum show, which runs through August, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. (The exhibition will travel to the Frye Art Museum in Seattle.) “Legibility, the way we understand things, is through this either/or mentality, but the reality is we have a both/and situation,” “And that’s where a lot of my work comes from.” She endorses what she calls “the idea of ambiguity as an excess of information” and observes that “there can be more legs than would normally go with one torso” in her paintings. “The viewer’s desire to see a cohesive figure will override the ambiguity.”

06-12-2021, 08:45 AM	#9
homoe Practically Lives Here How Do You Identify?: Butch Relationship Status: ..... Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: 30 minute ferry ride from Seattle Posts: 38,565 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 20,811 Thanked 33,558 Times in 14,919 Posts Rep Power: 21474890	Fan of Christina Quarles, then catch her exhibit in Chicago.. Museum Of Contemporary Art Chicago 220 E Chicago Ave. Now until Sept 5th Are the figures in a painting by Christina Quarles taking shape or dematerializing? Solidifying or dissolving? The viewer can’t be sure. That indeterminacy reflects the artist’s sense of who she is. A mixed-race queer woman living in Los Angeles, Quarles was the breakout discovery of the New Museum’s “Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon” group show in 2017. In that setting, her paintings seemed to be addressing gender fluidity. But, as she told me then, it’s race, not gender, that has preoccupied her since childhood. “Mom is white, Dad is Black,” she explained. “I am fair-skinned and usually seen as white by white people, but I’m seen more as mixed identity in communities of color.” Her racial profile depends on the context of the moment. “My experience is firmly rooted in whiteness and Blackness, rather than a hybrid of the two,” she said. Four years later, with her concerns more timely than ever, Quarles, 36, is having her largest solo museum show, which runs through August, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. (The exhibition will travel to the Frye Art Museum in Seattle.) “Legibility, the way we understand things, is through this either/or mentality, but the reality is we have a both/and situation,” “And that’s where a lot of my work comes from.” She endorses what she calls “the idea of ambiguity as an excess of information” and observes that “there can be more legs than would normally go with one torso” in her paintings. “The viewer’s desire to see a cohesive figure will override the ambiguity.”