I am very interested in the exhibition ‘Queer Abstraction’ featured at Des Moines Art Centre June-September 2019, I am hoping to base my dissertation off of this exhibition and the theory behind it. It featured the following artists: Math Bass, Mark Bradford, Elijah Burgher, Tom Burr, Mark Joshua Epstein, Edie Fake, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Nicolas Hlobo, John Paul Morabito, Carrie Moyer, Sheila Pepe, Prem Sahib, Jonathan VanDyke, and Jade Yumang, some of which I will be studying further. I have been reading an essay written to accompany the exhibition by David J. Getsy titled ‘Ten Queer Theses on Abstraction’ which has been really eye opening. Though being interested in many different art styles and avenues I have always had a fixation on abstraction and have not until recently quite understood why. Abstraction is a way for queer people to translate their social and bodily relations into formal relationships and allows amorphous shapes to describe a deeper connection to the physical world that sometimes lacks in more figurative work. As Getsy states in his essay  ‘“queer abstraction” addresses the same desire to work from queer experience and queer revolt’, this desire to deviate from what is considered ‘normal’ is not uncommon in the lgbtq+ community, it’s not so much the need to feel different but stems from a feeling of otherness which can be imposed by misinformation and misunderstanding. This inner turmoil generally manifests itself through revolution,  which especially in the art world becomes a need to reject traditional standards and subvert peoples initial reactions and labels.

‘Queer Abstraction’ at the Des Moines Art Center. Photograph by Rich Sanders.

Math Bass – Newz! (2019)

Mark Joshua Epstein – Working Lunch (2018) Photograph by Guy Ben-Ari.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres – “Untitled” (Water) (1995) Photograph by Rich Sanders

Jade Yumang – Page 5 (2016)