PERSONS OF INTEREST: SELF-TAUGHT VISIONARIES

PERSONS OF INTEREST: SELF-TAUGHT VISIONARIES brought together three Artist+ Members—Jerry the Marble Faun, Joyce McDonald and Raynes Birkbeck—to consider the imaginative potential of work by self-taught, visionary and outsider artists.

The evening of artist talks, moderated by Alex Fialho, started off with Jerry the Marble Faun, who discussed the formation of his sculptures and his role cult classic documentary Grey Gardens. Joyce McDonald followed, speaking to spirituality, personal history, and her process of creation. Finally, Raynes Birkbeck took us inside his imaginative works to discuss the future, politics, and Moby Dick in the post nuclear age.

PERSONS OF INTEREST, curated by Sam Gordon for Visual AIDS, featured a wide cross section of Visual AIDS artist members and friends. The term, "person of interest" often identifies someone in an investigation that possesses characteristics that merit further attention. The investigation presented here is a collection of drawing, painting, photography, performance, video, and sculpture.

PERSONS OF INTEREST, presented by Visual AIDS at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division featured the trained and self taught, long term survivors and the prematurely lost, and individuals who live for us very much in the present, some only in our hearts and minds.

The exhibition included work by Raynes Birkbeck, Mark Carter, Ben Cuevas, Chloe Dzubilo, Arnold Fern, Tim Greathouse, Keith Haring, Hudson, Affrekka Jefferson, Jerry the Marble Faun, Joyce McDonald, Lucas Michael, Nicolas Moufarrege, Luna Luis Ortiz, Hunter Reynolds, Hugh Steers, Tseng Kwong Chi, Muna Tseng, and Frederick Weston.

The Bureau is a queer cultural center, bookstore, and event space hosted by The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City that seeks to excite and educate a self-confident, sex-positive, and supportive queer community by offering books, publications, and art and by hosting readings, performances, film screenings, book discussion groups, and workshops.