:Queer Archaeology; Queer Abstraction’
By Holland Cotter
Excerpt:
“In the new century, under the leadership of Hunter O’Hanian, the museum, which absorbed the foundation, acknowledged these changes. And now, directed by Gonzalo Casals, it fully incorporates them, as is evident in “Found: Queer Archaeology; Queer Abstraction.” The male figure is still here, and sometimes nude. But in large-scale watercolors by Geoffrey Chadsey it’s a racial and sexual hybrid. In collages by Troy Michie it’s physically fractured, its erotic charge interrupted, confused, even canceled out.
And in a photomural by the Los Angeles artist Ken Gonzalez-Day, the body is conspicuous through its absence. The mural is based on one of many photographs the artist has tracked down of lynchings of Latinos, Native Americans and Chinese immigrant men in California in the early 20th century. In the nocturnal picture used here, men milling around a tree look upward, but the object of their attention is missing. The artist has erased the form of the hanged victim, leaving dark, empty space.”
To read full article at The New York Times
To visit Leslie-Lohman Museum