featured gallery for March 2013

WHAT’S IN YOUR CLOSET?

This gallery is a closet. The wardrobe--organized into three sections (Clothes, Shoes, and Accessories)--is comprised of artworks that have been curated from the Visual AIDS collection, all of which incorporate elements of wearable fashion. 



Fashion, of course, plays many roles in the spectrum of queer art history and LGBTQ experience in general. In the context of these artworks by artists living with HIV, fashion is sometimes embraced as a form of personal empowerment, defiance, even joy and whimsy; while at other times, fashion is taken to task for its tendency to appropriate and reduce authentic cultural expression to commodified glamour and style. Imagining this collection as a curated wardrobe provokes engagement with the individual works in unexpected and even absurdist ways, adding to the meaning of the work and placing a fresh emphasis on the ways in which fashion, as a concept, is worked over, deliberately or not, by each artist. 



Each of the works in this gallery suggests the presence and absence of the artist’s body. Yet even as you contemplate the bodies of these artists, you are invited to project yourself into the contours of the works that they produced. Why not try them on for size? Take a look in the mirror. Strike a pose. The world is a runway. Make it your own, and don’t get run over.