Bring Your Own Body: Transgender between Archives and Aesthetics

41 Cooper Gallery at The Cooper Union
Curated by Jeanne Vaccaro and Stamatina

Bring Your Own Body presents the work of transgender artists and archives, from the institutional and sexological to the personal and liminal. Taking its title from an unpublished manuscript by intersex pioneer Lynn Harris, the exhibit historicizes the sexological and cultural imaginary of transgender through a curatorial exploration of the Kinsey Archives. Simultaneously it presents contemporary transgender art and world making practices that contest existing archival narratives and construct new historical genealogies. Moving beyond the aesthetically defunct category of “identity politics” and the fraught gains of visibility, the artworks propose transgender as a set of aesthetics made manifest through multiple forms: paint, sculpture, textiles, film, digital collage, and performance.

Participating artists: Niv Acosta, Mark Aguhar, Math Bass, Effy Beth, Justin Vivian Bond, Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, Vaginal Davis, Zackary Drucker, Chloe Dzubilo, Reina Gossett & Sasha Wortzel, Juliana Huxtable, Greer Lankton, Pierre Molinier, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Flawless Sabrina, Buzz Slutzky, and Chris Vargas and the Museum of Transgender Hirstory and Art.

Presented with support from Kinsey Institute, Empire State Pride Agenda, Visual AIDS, Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, and the Department of Performance Studies at NYU.

Organized by Jeanne Vaccaro with Stamatina Gregory

DJ January Hunt provides music at the opening.

Opening Reception October 13th 6pm – 8pm

Exhibition Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 7pm

More info: http://www.cooper.edu/events-and-exhibitions/exhibitions/bring-your-own-body-transgender-between-archives-and-aesthetics