{"id":72483,"date":"2020-02-26T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-26T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=72483"},"modified":"2020-02-26T10:28:35","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T16:28:35","slug":"modern-exhibition-queer-abstraction-challenges-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2020\/02\/26\/modern-exhibition-queer-abstraction-challenges-audience\/","title":{"rendered":"Modern Exhibition ‘queer abstraction’ Challenges Audience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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‘queer abstraction’ on view at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. (Courtesey of EG Schempf)<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

If you were to attend the exhibition queer abstraction<\/em> currently on view at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, you would first find yourself face to face with a shimmering, light blue beaded curtain hung across the gallery entrance, gently swaying side to side as a consequence of other museum-goers\u2019 passage through its barrier. At once, you realize that if you want to view the rest of the exhibition, you must part the curtain, allow the beads to brush your skin, and insert your body into the gallery space. From the jump, queer abstraction<\/em> challenges its audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The curtain through which one must pass is actually Untitled (Water), <\/em>an interactive sculpture made in 1995 by process artist F\u00e9lix Gonz\u00e1lez-Torres, just one year before his AIDS-related death. Gonz\u00e1lez-Torres\u2019 work was often informed by his identity as an openly gay person, and typically functions as social critique or cultural activism. In this instance, Gonz\u00e1lez-Torres questions modes of normativity and raises issues of institutional access by visually and haptically bifurcating the museum\u2019s gallery space. By creating this spatial division, the artist muddles not only the perceived parameters of the museum\u2019s layout, but also reimagines what it means to engage in the viewership of fine art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gonz\u00e1lez-Torres challenges the decorum of ‘look, don\u2019t touch’ that has been historically prescribed to educational institutions like the Nerman. Though the curtain forms a barrier that may, at first, connote a prohibitive or exclusive function, the concept behind Gonz\u00e1lez-Torres\u2019 piece is quite the opposite. Those who have been conditioned to passively experience art objects are forced to literally confront the habits that exclude them from the accessible, participatory experience that Gonz\u00e1lez-Torres has created. The artist warmly welcomes his audience to fully engage in the whimsical discovery of what lies beyond the curtain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The catch is that viewers must first recognize their hesitancy to physically embody this experience, and then push past the initial discomfort of defying normative conventions of viewership. Here, the artist seems to ask, \u201cWhat does it take to belong inside an art gallery?\u201d and moreover, \u201cWhy don\u2019t<\/em> you come in?\u201d This question posed by Gonz\u00e1lez-Torres, as well as the show\u2019s curators, is not rhetorical. Queer abstraction<\/em> is interested in the reasons why systems of normativity dominate art, and wants its audiences to become aware of any possible answers to this question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Untitled (Water) <\/em>is an aesthetic iteration of the show\u2019s challenge to its audience, the show\u2019s curators made sure to reiterate this challenge in an explicit, textual manner. Once viewers have successfully navigated Gonz\u00e1lez-Torres\u2019 blue plastic quandary, they are met with prefatory text displayed on the gallery wall that explains the show\u2019s conceptual goals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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