Queer(ed) Performativity

Queer(ed) Performativity points to a rise in the production, distribution, and consumption of queerness in both mainstream American culture and media. The performativity of queerness and the queer(ed) body has, within the past two decades, served as a note of comedic and anxious relief, a catch all for the uneasiness felt from the deconstruction of gender binaries and the shifting attitudes towards the fluidity of sexuality. The crux of Queer(ed) Performativity raises attention to the fact that the queer(ed) body is lauded, celebrated, and put on display when in the service of white heterosexual consumption. The exhibition underscores the incisive ways in which artists respond to, subvert, and refuse a politics of respectability and heteronormativity vis-a-vis both art objects and the body. Whether through the hyper-performance of queerness, the refusal to perform the role of the queer, or somewhere in between, the artists question the role of “queer” within late-capitalist neoliberal circles.

DC Arts Center
Exhibiting Artists: Eames Armstrong, Hoesy Corona, Alexandra "Rex" Delafkaran, Antonius Bui, Stephanie Mercedes, Myles Loftin, and David Vassalli.