Body of Work

DEVIANT BODIES CEPA GALLERY BUFFALO, NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 29-DECEMBER 17, 2006 Following on the heels of the Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Art's (CEPA) groundbreaking 2004 exhibition Deviant Bodies 1.0, which explored not art by gay men, not art about gay men, but rather the gay male aesthetic in visual art/media, Deviant Bodies 2.0 focuses on work by, about, and from within the transgendered community. Deviant Bodies 2.0, curated by CEPA Executive Director Lawrence F. Brose and J.R. Martin-Alexander, explores a wide range of experience as expressed through photography-based visual media by and about transgender[s], genderqueer[s], and [those from] gender variant perspectives, as noted on the gallery's Web site. Deviant Bodies 2.0 is an expansive exhibition that covers spaces on three separate floors. The work in this provocative and important exhibition reflects the viewpoints of this varied group of artists, as well as the perspectives of artists about these transgender warriors, to borrow a term from the title of activist Leslie Feinberg's 1997 book. It successfully identifies the beginnings of both new ways of being in the world and a new type of community. Precisely because of the subject matter explored by these artists, the use of self-portraiture or, at the very least, the exploration of the body and its parts, is prevalent. Tobaron Waxman, for example, a Toronto-based photographer, depicts through large-format photographs female-to-male (FTM) persons, post mastectomy, interacting with members of a Hassidic community. Seen in photographs of ritualized haircuts, a prayer session, and expressions of affection, the unclothed central figure (wearing not even a yarmulke [skullcap] or tallis [prayer shawl]) is shocking--less for the unspecific gender and nudity than for the number of tattoos visible on hir body--since bodily decoration like tattoos and piercings are proscribed in Orthodox Judaism. Del LaGrace Volcano, a London-based artist, is represented here with a series of self-portraits--six of them busts, two full figure. The black-and-white backgrounds (perhaps small black tiles with white grout) allow the life-size portraits to be viewed head-on, so to speak. The tremendous variation of gender presentation among these eight portraits of the same individual removes limitations and describes just some of the choices open to any one of us. In addition to the self-portraiture, and in perhaps the most poignant image in the exhibition, Bitte and Andy on a Bicycle (Stockholm, Sweden 2006) (2006), Volcano photographed two nongender-specific individuals on a bicycle, wearing archaic, turn-of-the-century gender-specific dress. Behind them, clearly visible, is a bridge connecting the past and present while spanning across genders. Linn Underhill of Lisle, New York, in a series of twenty elegant self-portraits titled No Man's Land (1999-2000), explores male privilege and its glamour. Referencing the work of gay male photographer George Platt Lynes in the 1930s through 1950s, Underhill transports hirself, and us, to a time period that may have looked marvelous, but in retrospect was dangerous and frightening to everyone other than wealthy, white, heterosexual males. In these evocative 11- x 14-inch silver gelatin photos, the artist depicts hirself in clothing ranging from period suits to informal attire to formal evening wear. The sheer variety of clothing from the period gives new meaning to the phrase Out of the closet and into the street, and a natty closet it is. The poses, often with legs spread akimbo, a jacket or suit coat thrown casually over a shoulder, a Homberg hat placed squarely on the head or at a jaunty angle, speak volumes about the dominant role played by men in society of that period but question that very privilege when the gender of the model is unspecific. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In Transfigurations (2003-5), Santa Cruz, California, photographer Jana Marcus celebrates the experience of FTM individuals; and then goes on to document the experience of male-to-female subjects. …

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