BATTLEGROUND STATES
UTAH MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, SALT LAKE CITY, UT
OCTOBER 5, 2012 - JANUARY 5, 2013
Daniel Albrigo, Absalon, Bas Jan Ader, Matthew Barney, Tobias Bernstrup, Robin Black, Nayland Blake, AA Bronson, Heather Cassils, Nicole Eisenman, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jonathan Horowitz, Trishelle Jeffrey, Amy Jorgensen, Asma Kazmi, Terence Koh, Annie Leibowitz, David Levine, Matt Lipps, Georges Minne, Carlos Motta, Takashi Murakami, Shirin Neshat, Bertrand Planes, Genesis Breyer P-orridge, Dean Sameshima, Jack Smith, Trevor Southey, David Wojnarowicz, Patrick Tuttofuoco, Guido van der Werve
Battleground States analyzes the space between traditional gender duality exploring alternative forms such as the third gender, a largely foreign concept in Western culture. In their non-Western roles, these alternative identities denote a space for possibility and transcendence.
Battleground States can be seen as in-between states, not fitting neatly within a concept of black and white but rather an indeterminate and borderless state of gray. Moving from ideas of hybridity, dedifferentiation and alternative unions, the exhibition investigates notions of the “post-gender” as a way to better understand how our cultural diversities allow interpretations of a third space.
Through the entry point of figuration, each artwork in the exhibition addresses the difficulties of personhood, the pressures and rites of the everyday, the empowering symbols, the aesthetics of repression, and the eventual dissolve to reveal a location inclusive and open to anyone. Generations of artists from across the globe set the figure on a course in which concepts of coupling or completing the self are represented as spiritual quests.
Battleground States Exhibition Guide
Photo credit : Morganne Wakefield
