Bring Your Own Body: Transgender Between Archives and Aesthetics

Tue, Oct 13, 2015 6pm - Sat, Nov 14, 2015 7pm

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Effy Beth, 'Una nueva artista necesita usar el baño (A new artist needs to use the bathroom),' 2011

Effy Beth, 'Una nueva artista necesita usar el baño (A new artist needs to use the bathroom),' 2011

"Bring Your Own Body" presents the work of transgender artists and archives, from the institutional and sexological to the personal and liminal. Taking its title from an unpublished manuscript by intersex pioneer Lynn Harris, the exhibit historicizes the sexological and cultural imaginary of transgender through a curatorial exploration of the Kinsey Archives. Simultaneously it presents contemporary transgender art and world making practices that contest existing archival narratives and construct new historical genealogies. Moving beyond the aesthetically defunct category of “identity politics” and the fraught gains of visibility, the artworks propose transgender as a set of aesthetics made manifest through multiple forms: paint, sculpture, textiles, film, digital collage, and performance.

See the "Bring Your Own Body" catalog.

Participating artists: Niv Acosta, Mark Aguhar, Math Bass, Effy Beth, Justin Vivian Bond, Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, Vaginal Davis, Zackary Drucker, Chloe Dzubilo, Reina Gossett & Sasha Wortzel, Juliana Huxtable, Greer Lankton, Pierre Molinier, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Flawless Sabrina, Buzz Slutzky, and Chris Vargas and the Museum of Transgender Hirstory and Art.

Presented with support from Kinsey Institute, Empire State Pride Agenda, Visual AIDS, Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, and the Department of Performance Studies at NYU.

Organized by Jeanne Vaccaro with Stamatina Gregory

DJ January Hunt provides music at the opening. 

Opening Reception October 13th 6pm - 8pm 

Exhibition Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 12pm - 7pm 

Photo credit: Image courtesy of the estate of Effy Beth. Photo by María Laura Voskian

Located in the 41 Cooper Gallery, located in 41 Cooper Square, on Third Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.