Little Birds and Our Daily Prayers

The Locker Room is pleased to present Little Birds and Our Daily Prayers, a group show co curated with Cameron Barker, opening in May and running through Pride Month, accompanied by  a series of public programs.  

Faygeleh, in Yiddish, means “little bird” and has historically been used as a slur for “girly” boys.  This exhibition imagines a reclamation of the term—birds, after all, possess an extraordinary  ability to find their flock even in dire conditions. Girly boys, boyly girls, and all our siblings who do  not fit—we sing a similar song and we listen. We answer one another’s prayers.  

The exhibition brings together thirteen artists of various backgrounds, ages 24-65, who engage,  grapple with, and dispute how queerness transforms the everyday. The works move beyond  queerness as identity and toward queerness as essence—a divine energy that animates  mundane life. It is an essence that outs us: irrepressible, embodied, in the soul—swishing our hips  and lisping our lips. Instead of the typical rainbow of colors associated with commercial  queerness, the twenty-two works in this exhibition are largely moody monochromes or limited  color palettes, signifying a celebratory muddying that occurs with perseverance. Examples include  Abbey Gilbert’s cyanotypes on newspaper, Khari Johnson-Ricks’ welded steel works, and  graphite, charcoal, and ink drawings by Cameron Barker, Brett Park, and Creighton Baxter.  

Rites, traditions, and rituals are often associated with organized religion, but queerness is a  language so ancient that religion can only attempt to mimic its cadence. Our rites are counted in  bumps in the road beneath motorbikes, in sweat sacraments made on dark dance floors, and in  daily shacharit enacted through the wettest application of lip gloss imaginable. These rites appear  throughout the exhibition, particularly in Anthony Viti’s works made of moving blankets, Chris  Minard’s meticulous depiction of “Mr. Desert Rose” perched in a dive bar, and Robert Martin’s reverential portrait of a boy in his underwear standing in a marsh with the solemnity of a saint  awaiting canonization. 

Programming:  

• Thursday, May 14, 6:00 PM: Artist Panel with Mia Fabrizio, Abbey Gilbert, Marla McLeod, and Anthony Peyton Young, moderated by Cameron Barker
• Saturday, June 13, 6:00 PM: Conversation with artist, educator, and activist Anthony Viti
• Sunday, June 28, 2:00–6:00 PM: Pride Celebration and Closing Reception  

Participating artsits: Cameron Barker, Anthony Viti, Creighton Baxter, Anthony Peyton Young, Robert Martin, Earthen Clay, Mia Fabrizio, Abbey Gilbert, Chris Minard, Brett Park, Marla McLeod, Ryan Leitner,  Khari Johnson-Ricks