Lips & Legs
The audience is invited to use these handmade stools in the gallery, juxtaposing the privilege of porcelain and gold garden stools with imagery from the ongoing culture wars and AIDS crisis. This piece mixes a suburban or mundane piece of culture with politically charged and personal images.
I wanted to mix polarizing symbols that some people really identify with and some find absolutely abhorrent. Throughout this process, I realized how much the specter of the AIDS crisis hangs over even my generation of gay men. From images of stonewall riots to the supreme court, there has been a lot of change in acceptance of gay rights, but at the same time there is a lot of damaging stereotyping, and the racism and transphobia in the queer community is also represented.
"He gives us visual clues of a history of oppression, the violence of silence, and the brutal messiness of life. Signifiers from the 80s and 90s walk us through the Culture Wars and AIDS epidemic, while an image of CeCe McDonald delivers us right back to the present where issues of race, class, and identity converge under harsh conditions." --Catalog essay by Kelly Connole
