Cut Ups: Queer Collage Practices

Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay Art

October 14—December 18, 2016

Bringing together fifteen intergenerational LGBT artists experimenting with various collage techniques, this group exhibition looks at the art of cutting and pasting from a queer lens. Leslie Lohman’s own archive as well as ONE Archives of L.A. at the USC Libraries provide this group exhibition a substantial source. “Graphic Albums Collection”, combining gay male pornography and pages from interior magazines, comments on domestication of gay culture, while “West End Avenue Collection” consists of Xeroxed collages of BDSM imagery.   

Odegaard, Olaf Title unknown (Hair), c. 1985 Mixed media collage 13 x 10 1⁄2 in.

Narratives around gender and identity politics revive in sensual depictions, reconsidering this Modernist genre from an alternative perspective. Queer anthology, either pages from vintage porn magazines or personal ephemera kept hidden under beds, offer artists in the exhibition vast source material. The exhibition, originally exhibited at Los Angeles as Cock, Paper, Scissors, is curated by David Evans Frantz, Lucas Hilderbrand, and Kayleigh Perkov.