U P C O M I N G
2023
September
FLUID GAZE w/ Lehuauakea (māhū mixed-Native Hawaiian Kānaka Maoli), Sam Kirk, Gabriel Maestas, Roin Morigeau, Adri De La Cruz, Amanda Curreri, Jose Villalobos, and Zefren-M (Diné). | 516 Arts | Albuquerque, NM
Opening: Sept 30th 2023 6-8pm
Dates: September 30 - December 30 2023
516 ARTS’ presents Fluid Gaze, which features the work of a select group of artists who use textiles, beaded garments, earthen materials, scrimshaw, and performance to explore the nuances of queer identity[1] from Indigenous, non-Indigenous, and Latinx perspectives. At a time when drag show bans and anti-trans legislations are sweeping the United States, challenging free speech and freedom of expression, Fluid Gaze responds to today’s social climate by addressing the subtleties of gender expression through contemporary artistic practices that reference the complex identities of the artists themselves. In these works, fluidity is a metaphor conveyed through various mediums and a range of material cultures, from traditional textiles and garments to geometric abstraction. The intersectional gaze of the artists invites the viewer to understand identity in context, as fluid and layered as many of the works themselves.
The work shows the blurred boundaries of the artists' diverse identities, which are fluid across cultures, genders, relationships, and even layers of history. Māhū Native Hawaiian artist Lehuauakea uses a traditional bark-based cloth called kapa in EA EA EA, a work that, in the words of the artist, “speaks to the levels of fertility, fluidity, movement, and expansion at the moment of creation in Native Hawaiian cosmology.” Also, the “darkness, according to ancestral teachings, possesses beauty, positivity, and is a common ancestor of all the universe. The repetition of pattern, the symbolism of light and dark, and motifs within this piece also reference ideas of blurring the line between seemingly established binaries.” EA EA EA is metaphorical, using traditional materials and patterns to express the ways in which queer individuals move between spaces as a combined result of their gender, sexual and cultural identities.”
Several artists investigate the concept of queerness through the intersection of converging cultures from history. For example, Maestas’s red cape in The Red Letter reveals hidden history about the mid-eighteenth-century witch trials in Abiquiu, New Mexico. The red clothing contains varying sizes of glass bead letters, wool, and hand-braided cotton chords, contributing to a heavy garment placed upon the wearer’s experience, reflective of carrying the weight of both hidden and visible aspects of the self, some more readily seen, and accepted by society than others. Maestas’s reinterpretation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlett Letter signifies the dehumanization of the Genizaro people’s stigmatization and labeling under the caste system, forcing them to hide their identities during the colonial era. The act of obscuring their identities through assimilation was an act of self-preservation. Maestas’s Red Letter shows how the artist and queer community shapeshift through multiple identities, transcending the binary through numerous layers of language, dress, and art.
Fluid Gaze brings distinct interpretations from a range of the 2SLGBTQIA+ identifying artists. Invited artists include Lehuauakea (māhū mixed-Native Hawaiian Kānaka Maoli), Sam Kirk, Gabriel Maestas, Roin Morigeau, Adri De La Cruz, Amanda Curreri, Jose Villalobos, and Zefren-M (Diné). The artworks invite us to explore the fluidity of the intersectional self, where identities are both seen and unseen and constructed on layers of meaning, tradition, and complexity.
[1] 2SLGBTQIA+ (two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, asexual, plus)
2024
TBD w/ May Kytonen (Preview) | YES IS A FEELING | Spokane, WA
roin.morigeau@gmail.com