curatorial
The Intangible Self
Featuring artists Nic Nicosia, Lovie Olivia, and René Treviño
January 7 - February 11, 2023
at Erin Cluley Gallery
In The Intangible Self, artists Nic Nicosia, Lovie Olivia, and René Treviño create visual testimonies as a means to reckon with the transient nature of identity and existence.
From the transcendental to the tangible, each artist reflects on ephemerality through a personal lens. Seeking to materialize abstract notions of being, they chronicle memories, emotions, and other fleeting occurrences in an attempt to bear witness to an elusive self-essence. Spanning painting, drawing, and sculptural collage, their work depicts what is felt but not seen within individual and collective personhood.
Through acts of record keeping, visualizing time, and recontextualizing the past, the artists engage in a stewardship of their own personal histories. Replicating methods closely aligned with that of historians, their works piece together disparate events into an aesthetic congruency. These practices of creative documentation serve as evidence– a transmittance of the past into the indeterminate future. In this way, the works become a simultaneous resistance and acceptance of our inevitable impermanence.
Three Dollar Bill
Featuring Chuck & George and Colton James White
October 29 - December 23, 2022
at Cluley Projects
Featuring the collaborative artist duo Chuck & George and performance artist Colton James White, the exhibition Three Dollar Bill explores the aesthetics of camp, its subversive nature, and expands upon the style’s historical ties to queerness.
Camp, a form of parody, combines the categories of “high” and “low” culture to celebrate its subject – rather than the usual critique associated with satire. A self-referential joke, camp persuades the audience to laugh with you instead of laugh at you as a reclamation of one’s own power and narrative. In this vein, the exhibition’s subversive title is a reference to the expression “queerer than a 3 dollar bill,” utilizing humor to overturn the phrase’s previous negative connotations.
Se camper, the French term believed to be the origin of the word “camp”, literally translates into the act of posing in an exaggerated fashion and is thought to have been used to describe the manners of gay men – especially those seen as overtly effeminate. Despite the style being used more universally after the rise of post modernism, camp has always had a rich history within the queer community. It has long been a dominant influence on queer subcultures such as Drag, Ballroom, and Club Kid scenes, and can be seen in the work of various queer creatives and celebrities such as David Bowie, Elton John, Jeremy Scott, and John Waters.
Three Dollar Bill gives nod to these queer histories and highlights the artists’ use of camp as a tool of subversion and a reclamation of power in their collective practices. Employing a wide range of media, the artists will tackle themes of desire, indulgence, power dynamics, and marginalization. Performance artist Colton James White will present a grouping of photography, video, and installation-based performance works, while the duo Chuck & George will present a combination of painting, sculpture, and multimedia presented together in an immersive installation titled The Velvetorium.