Moore College Galleries
more info: https://moore.edu/events/re-focus-then-and-now/2024-01-27/
show
Murmurations
26th National Queer Arts Festival
June 9 - 30
curated by Xtal Azul and Gaia W.XYZ
production support from Anne Wu
installation support from Chichi Del Castillo
photos by Jesus Rodriguez
The Body You Want
photos by Constance Mensh
Asian Arts Initiative
The Body You Want is curated by Joyce Chung.
PRESS
Peter Crimmins, “Erotic Art Softens Up Asian Arts Initiative,” WHYY, April 17 2023
“My work as an artist and as an intellectual is about porn and art; where can they overlap, and how can we push the boundaries of art to be more accepting of porn?” said Wu. “Because at the PMA [Philadelphia Museum of Art], you see full nudes by dead men artists, but on Instagram, I can’t post a naked photo or I’ll be deleted.”
Ishii is pushing the boundaries of art and explicit sexual content by bringing Wu into her institution.
“One of the elephants in the room is that: You really don’t understand how provocative something is until your body reacts to it,” Ishii said. “For me at least, that is a good barometer of the caliber of a work: does your body react? I can’t think of a form of art that elicits a direct bodily reaction like erotica.”
Vriddhi Vinay, “Exploring the boundaries of pornography and erotic art in ‘The Body You Want’ at Asian Arts Initiative,” ArtBlog, June 15 2023
“One of the most subversive parts of this already dynamic exhibits was the pornographic video installations in a separate exhibition room behind the Asian Arts Initiative’s theater room. Curated by and starring Eva Wu, who is also one of the organizers of the Hot Bits queer porn festival and using the moniker Evie Snax for their performances, the looping un-simulated films feature a variety of queer and trans BIPOC adult film performers engaging in different types of sexual play. These films stand out in the world of fabricated, very cisheteronormative big-budget studio pornographic films made with a dopamine-eating white lens and kink practices performed in a way that creates false expectations. Instead, they are sexy, appreciative of marginalized sexual intimacy without staged fetishism for the viewer, expertly visually composed, and show everything and all without needing to cover the most vulnerable of natural human expressions from what a judgmental eye may deem as “too vulgar” as commonly imposed.”
Taeyi Kim, “The Body You Want,” ArtAsiaPacific, September 4 2023
In Baby (2018), an eight-minute film in which a performer engages in something alluding to solo strip tease, Wu depicts the queer/lesbian romance in a playful yet sensuous manner, rather than the hyper-erotic, sexualized way often imposed by society.
sabella Segalovich, “12 Art Shows to See in Philadelphia This Summer,” Hyperallergic, July 6 2023
FORBIDDEN CITY (A Peep Show Retrospective)
September 8-30, 2022
Philadelphia, PA - PRACTICE Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Eva Wo. FORBIDDEN CITY (A Peep Show Retrospective)” features several bodies of work including installation, digital collage, lenticular, self-portraiture and performance art. The exhibition will also debut a live, interactive “peep show” booth, a NSFW playing card deck to take home, as well as a conjoining retrospective of over twenty short films, produced between 2015 and 2022.
The focal point of Wo’s multidisciplinary practice is to both imagine and call-in a vivid utopian future of uncensored gender and sexual self-determination for all. To achieve this, the bold and colorful works that comprise FORBIDDEN CITY embrace the tension between the joyous and the obscene by way of sweaty play within the boundlessness of queer freak sexuality. In joyous celebration, Wo realizes a truly free, pro-sex work and pro-porn universe.
At the beating heart of FORBIDDEN CITY is its interactive peep show. Inspired by the pulsating neon street signs of 70s Times Square, Wo’s free-standing, interactive INFINITE PEEP show booth is adorned with an elaborate and glitzy scalloped edge, flashing light bulbs and an opening universe right before your eyes. Activate for the price of one creep coin, a free sample of which to first 100 visitors. Once the viewer inserts a pleasure coin and peers through the peep hole, a world of flowers, mirrors, lights and live performance art opens up before their eyes.
Wo’s film retrospective offers the viewer an opportunity to experience unadulterated queer/trans creativity and sexuality on screen. Throughout their rich archive of sci-fi feverdreams, playfully erotic photoshoots and lesbionic strip teases, Wo creates other worlds to abandon the otherwise transphobic and cisnormative status quo in porn.
Wo’s dynamic pin-up playing card deck, Sun Bunny NSFW Playing Cards (2022), also joins these themes in a whimsical, hand-held medium. Whereas traditional pin-up cards depict women in risqué poses by male artists, Wo’s cards recenter the sexual autonomy of the figure in the frame. Erotic, colorful and audacious, each card collages an original photo of the artist by Shoog McDaniel, resulting in a lush and seductive deck unlike any other.
For more information, visit practicegallery.org
Visitor Information
PRACTICE Gallery
319 N 11th St, 2nd Floor, Unit 2G
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Exhibition will be open from Sept. 8 - Sept. 30 2022 with opening receptions* on Thursday Sept 8, Friday Sept 9, and Friday Sept 30 from 6-10 p.m. Admission is free. Masks provided and required. Suitable only for ages 18 & up.
Opening receptions include durational live performances by West Vargina, Eppchez, Mia Secreto and other special guests. Special after hours short film screening upstairs at Vox Populi’s black box theater beginning at 10pm immediately after September 9 reception. ~60 minutes.
The Gallery is open to the public on First Fridays and on weekends from 2-6 p.m. If you would like to drop by some other time please e-mail info@practicegallery.org for an appointment.
Accessibility Statement: There are five steps leading from the street-level to the first-floor landing where the passenger elevator picks-up/drops-off. The entry into/out of the elevator is 29-inches wide, so may not accommodate all wheelchairs or motorized chairs. Please get in touch if you need a ramp or have other questions.
PRESS: Timaree Schmitt, “Forbidden City,” Philadelphia Weekly, September 5 2022
Photos by Rich Hogan
Intricate Intimate
on view May 6, 2021 – June 2, 2021
opening reception May 6, 6-9pm
Allouche Gallery 82 Gansevoort St, NY NY 10014
Co-curated by Swoon, Monica Canilao and BLK PALATE, The Intricate Intimate presents a group exhibition focusing on the erotic. Featuring 25 established and emerging artists, The Intricate Intimate offers a safe space for artists to explore the intricacies of erotic intimacy on their own terms and based on their own definitions. The exhibition invites viewers to consider questions such as what seduces you? What arouses your vulnerability? How does the intersection of identities and lived experiences inform sexual intimacy, among other questions. The collection of artists participating in the exhibition present works that inspire the audience to explore the intricacies of their own erotic intimacy.
An Alarming Specificity (@ Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery)
“Eva Wŏ’s lightboxes and gifs celebrate queer people of color in lush, surreal landscapes. Wŏ positions her subjects at the center, larger than life in their own universes which protect and celebrate them in a cacophony of brilliant colors. Even as the work honors the bodies of her models, Wŏ recognizes their vulnerability, providing a salt circle and LED candles as a means of protection.” - Aubree Penney
Featuring work by Shannon Finnegan, Chitra Ganesh, GenderFail, Yvette Granata, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Linda Stupart, and Eva Wŏ, An Alarming Specificity engages with human bodies which do not align with a fictional norm grounded in white patriarchal hegemony. Curated by Aubree Penney, the exhibition examines ways artists subvert the predominance of white, heterosexual, cis-male, non-disabled bodies as the default of humanity.
Though the physical exhibition and events have been cancelled to help limit the spread of COVID-19, the exhibition will continue its work of upholding individual bodies attempting to survive and thrive in a world which frequently neglects to support, protect, recognize, or heal them. Through its physical closure as an act of care which centers vulnerable bodies, as well as its online presence, An Alarming Specificity is about loving bodies and beings as they are, finding tactics for support. I can think of nothing that suits the project so much as these protective measures. In this interim space, the show still exists, albeit in a very different form. Sometimes care looks like distance. Check the website for forthcoming online elements of the exhibition, and in the spirit of the project, please be extra gentle with yourselves as we navigate this difficult moment.
No Human Involved (@PICA)
“Snax’s GIFs, “NO BAD WHORES JUST BAD LAWS,” “I like your energy, I wanna experience it,” and “¡Borikén Libre!” are technicolor, glitchy collages centering images of QTBIPoC and sex workers. Rapidly-shifting and mesmerizing, Snax’s GIFs reference texting and the Internet as intertwined entities within her fantasy scenes of shame-free millennial sex work.” - Hyperallergic, In Portland, An Annual Exhibition by and for Sex Workers
November 8 – December 14, 2019
Public Opening: Friday, November 8, 2019
Gallery Hours: Thursdays & Fridays, 12:00 – 6:00pm; Saturdays, 12:00 – 4:00pm
Portland Institute of Contemporary Art
15 NE Hancock St Portland OR 97212
No Human Involved seeks to complicate narratives of sex work by showcasing artists’ projects that critically examine and engage–and deconstruct and reconstruct–dynamics of emotion, labor, landscape, language, humor, family, identity, and community. In proximity and in conversation, these artists’ conceptually and politically aware uses of material and form combine to question and destabilize our most socially ingrained perceptions and assumptions about gender, power, desire, economy, sexuality, feminism, labor, and love. Artists: Brittany Marie Chavez, Dee Lyrium, Ev Echovia + Bane Belladonna, Eva Wo, Pxssycontrol, Julia Arredondo, Amanda Lee, Juicebox, Kathleen Boudwin, Mona Superhero, Pallace de la Garza, Philip Edward King, Sathya, sean chamberlain, The Stripper Project.
The phrase *“no human involved” (“NHI”) is a slang term that has been commonly used by police to refer to crimes involving the murder or injury of sex workers, drug users, gang members, immigrants, and transient folks, with Black and Brown populations disproportionately affected. Use of the term spiked significantly in 1980s Los Angeles, its increased popularity a reminder of how the dehumanization and criminalization of sex workers and other marginalized populations is consistently enforced, normalized, and upheld by the interlocking injustices and oppressions of capitalism, racism, White supremacy, imperialism, settler-colonialism, nationalism, borders, carceral and police states, patriarchy, xenophobia, transphobia, homophobia, and gender-based violence.The phrase has since been used by numerous artists, activists, filmmakers, scholars, and writers across media, literature, and research to illuminate and bring awareness to targeted forms of violence.
No Human Involved: The 5th Annual Sex Workers’ Art Show speaks to dehumanizing socio-political systems and cultural conditions through the artistic voices and viewpoints of sex workers themselves. Far from just a show “about” sex work, and intentionally subverting or rejecting clichéd romanticized or pitiable representations, No Human Involved seeks to complicate narratives of sex work by showcasing artists’ projects that critically examine and engage–and deconstruct and reconstruct–dynamics of emotion, labor, landscape, language, humor, family, identity, and community. Curated through a competitive, international open call, multiple works by 15 artists span installation, video, photography, new media, sculpture, drawing, painting, printmaking, and performance. In proximity and in conversation, these artists’ conceptually and politically aware uses of material and form combine to question and destabilize our most socially ingrained perceptions and assumptions about gender, power, desire, economy, sexuality, feminism, labor, and love.
No Human Involved: The 5th Annual Sex Workers’ Art Show is co-curated by Kat Salas and Matilda Bickers of STROLL PDX, a harm reduction, education, and outreach group run by and for sex workers, in collaboration with Roya Amirsoleymani, Artistic Director & Curator, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA). It honors the history, spirit, and tradition of STROLL PDX’s annual sex workers’ art show and other grassroots exhibitions of, by, and for sex workers and their communities, while expanding the Portland project’s platform and possibilities through PICA’s space, visibility, and resources.
“Snax reflect her background as a queer, mixed Chinese-American/white femme in her compilation of new media-inspired GIFs, NO BAD WHORES JUST BAD LAWS, ¡Borikén Libre!, and I like your energy, I wanna experience it. Snax’s vibrant videos feature QTBIPoC and sex workers in a whimsical, colorful and luxurious world “free of binaries, shame, and oppression.” In one scene, Snax depicts four nude [people] lounging on a colorful float in a bright blue pool of water, a repositioning of the canonized female nude. One of the[m] holds up a camera, which, from the bird’s-eye perspective of the film, points straight forward, recasting the gaze from herself to the viewer and shifting herself into the position of observer, not the observed.” - Oregon Arts Watch, ‘No Human Involved’: Art by sex workers tells a complex story
Intisar Abioto
Sarah Marguier
New Asian Futurisms (@AAI)
September 27 – December 6, 2019
Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Opening Reception: First Friday, October 4, 6-9pm
Closing Reception: First Friday, December 6, 6-9pm
Asian Arts Initiative
1219 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA
Mainstream fictions, especially science fiction of doomed futures and metaphors for oppression often evoke fear. Instead, what if we repaired the imaginations of fragmented pasts and accepted the new formats of allegory, dialogue, expression; accepted the post-human biome. A shift in perspective and observing multiple histories of diverse communities can inspire us to look forward to looking forward. What if we could use a new futurism to create a narrative of hope?
In New Asian Futurism, we asked artists to imagine a place beyond time and space, a backdrop for the imagination of queer, differently abled, of multiplicity of thought; to continue the journeys embarked upon by Afrofuturists like Samuel R. Delaney, Sun Ra and most importantly, Octavia Butler. What if we made the traditional purview of science fiction more inclusive; unapologetically naturalist, spiritual and healing. Responding to these questions with existing media, New Asian Futurism is a public arts program to showcase visual art, digital media, poetry and performance.
ARTISTS: Saks Afridi | Melissa Chen | Amir-Behan Jahanbin | JiSoo Lee | Firoz Mahmud | Leeroy New | Tomorrow We Inherit the Earth: The Queer Intifada | Eva Wǒ
WORKING GROUP: Ching-In Chen | Wit López | Atif Sheikh | Li Sumpter
Group Show: Stonewall @ 50 (@ Leonard Pearlstein Gallery)
“The terrific digital collages of Eva Wo would not have been [at Stonewall in 1994] because they reflect a more contemporary sensibility.” - Thomas Hine, Philadelphia Inquirer, 50 Years After Stonewall
June 28 - July 26 2019
Opening Reception & Performances June 28 5:00pm – 8:00pm
Gallery Open Wed, Thurs, Fri - 12- 4pm; Saturday - 12-5pm
Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Drexel University; 3401 Filbert Street Philadelphia, PA 19104
STONEWALL@ 50 celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots which took place June 28–30, 1969. The show gathers 50+ LGBTQ* Philadelphia area artists in the largest show of LGBTQ* art in Philadelphia history. The Stonewall Riots marked a pivotal moment in the struggle for queer liberation in the USA. STONEWALL @ 50 includes painting, drawing, photography, video, sculpture, fiber work, and installation, with performances by Wit López, Vitche-Boul Ra and a tableaux vivant by Jonas Dos Santos at the opening reception. Curated by David Acosta & Janus Ourma
Artists include: alkotó, Linda Lee Alter, Keenan Bennett, Marcus Branch, Keith Breitfeller, Uriah Bussey, Danny Cappello, Corliss Cavalieri, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Alden Cole, Ebony Malaika Collie, Vicente Ortiz Cortez, Daniel De Jesús, Brian David Dennis, Susan DiPronio, Jonas Dos Santos, Thom Duffy, Uta Fellechner, Aaron Feltman, Santiago Galeas, Rami George, Ralfka Gonzalez, Laureen Griffin, Catriona Gunn, Andrew Sedgwick Guth, Link Harper, H.D. Ivey, Michael Jicha, Willard Johnson, Aaron Kalinay, Tristan Kravitz, Malachi Lily, Wit López, Rob Lybeck, Virgil Marti, Amy Martin, Gabriel Martinez, Shareen Masoud-Jointe, Natalie Hope McDonald, Kara Mshinda, Warren Muller, Heather Raquel Phillips, Chanthaphone Rajavong, Devon Reiffer, Eddy Rhenals, Jordi Sabaté, Gerard Silva, Chad States, Brandon Straus, Noemi Charlotte Thieves, Julien Tomasello, Rochelle (Rockie) Toner, Vitche-Boul Ra, Eva Wǒ, Pedro Zagitt
Fortune: Technologies @ High Tide
FORTUNE is a Philadelphia-based publication project, assembled by and for queer Asian publics in the Year of the Pig 2019. Each of 12 monthly issues features multiple contributors, and is released by way of gathering. Please join us for the release of FORTUNE issue 4: TECHNOLOGIES at High Tide.
Here’s what’s on the table: a series of presentations, a lazy susan, a karaoke machine, a spread of FORTUNE’s past issues and collected ephemera, a QR-code resource guide, a rotation of snacks. This event will be livestreamed, and the show will be up at High Tide thru June 29. Stay tuned for additional FORTUNE x High Tide programming through the course of the show!
FORTUNE is an effort in spacemaking, both in print and in gathering. It feels important to us, as we produce an object that archives itself and documents work by a community collected sparingly in print — that we document its production, too. Let’s meet each other here, for critical play and work, among TECHNOLOGIES that move us. As we close out AAPI Heritage Month, we laugh and cry at ‘Asia’ as a site of technological dystopias, waste incineration, and exoticized antiquity in the western imaginary. As we continue in the Year of the Pig, we want to lean into our shared references, imagine our queer asian futures, and live them together.
[High Tide is accessible by several steps and one flight of stairs. There is a freight elevator which will be available for use if it is in working order. Please call 267-277-3363 on the day of the event for an update. The event itself will be livestreamed, and welcomes participation digitally and abroad.]
PRESENTATIONS by Erica ‘Quinha’ Mukai Faria, Eva Wŏ, Noemi Charlotte Thieves, & Pear Wear
KARAOKE by Joan Oh
Group Show: Making Space (@ Galleries at Moore)
Group show celebrating the 25th anniversary of Leeway Foundation, on view September 15 through December 8, 2018, free and open to the public Monday - Saturday 11am - 5pm at the Galleries at Moore, 1916 Race St. Philadelphia. Opening reception Thursday, September 20, 530-830p, closing reception Friday, December 7, 630-830p. Curated by Denise Brown.
Secret Cinema: Late Night Morsels (music video screening)
screening: Thursday, August 9th at 8-11p at the Rotunda | 4014 Walnut St. Philly 19104 | $free$
WATCH THE FULL 2.5 HR PLAYLIST HERE
☞ music videos are undeniably essential and embody unlimited possibilities artistically, politically and culturally. do you remember when all MTV showed was music videos? we miss those days! they mark time periods and look into the future. they are ultimately meant to be consumable. and who doesn't love a snack?
☞ join us for a one-night event as we share the best of the best ~ from new to obscure to local talent ~ brought to you by your friendly neighborhood video geeks. we promise you'll be leaving with new inspiration to savor and music to add to your playlist
☜ curated by Eva Wǒ Khristina Acosta & Waqia Abdul-Kareem with contributions from Steph Yin, Cota & Heart Byrne and free popsicles from the lil pop shop
Secret Cinema: Healing and Feeling
Screening: Thursday, April 12th at 8pm at the Rotunda | 4014 Walnut St. Philly 19104 | $free$
When was the last time watching something gave you a sense of security and possibility and abundance and openings?
Each of these 7 films makes an intimate investigation into connection, relationship (with oneself and others), love and place. Through DIY, intentional, and care-based filmmaking, witness uniquely honest and moving documentation and storytelling. From fantasy to experimental documentary, this series will make you feel nourished and maybe just a little softer somewhere inside.
The screening will include a brief Q&A with local filmmakers. This free event is guest curated by Eva Wǒas part of the Rotunda's Secret Cinema Series. RSVP on Facebook.
My Sister Swallowed the Zoo
Maya Yu Zhang (Philly 2015)
My Sister Swallowed the Zoo investigates an ordinary phone call between a mother and a daughter. The film explores hope and disappointment, adoption and replacement, freedom, and captivity. 11 minutes.
No Promised Land
BARETEETH & Aiden Un (Philly/Jamaica 2016)
In a Philadelphia outside of time, an intergenerational group collects their tactics for liberation in this somatic and experimental documentary. 20 minutes.
Grounded While Walls Fall
Zein Nakhoda (Philly 2017)
A post-revolutionary archivist recalls practices of resilience and spiritual grounding among their ancestor organizers, cultural workers, and movement builders. Grounded While Walls Fall profiles practices of resilience and spiritual grounding among organizers, cultural workers, and movement builders in Greater Philadelphia. Documentary portraits orbit a central question, “What practices keep you grounded in your work for social change?” to explore spirituality, care of self and community, and inner power at the grassroots. Told from the perspective of a post-revolutionary archivist, the film imagines these practices as seeds of profound transformation planted in a time of transition.
Squirrel Hill Falls
Hilary Brashear (Philly 2018)
Squirrel Hill Falls is a short docu-fiction film about an abandoned park with an identity crisis. It's one part neighborhood history, two parts magic and a dash of a pink haired local who likes to investigate. This film is still a work in progress and question cards will be handed out before the screening. Your feedback is optional but appreciated! 15 minutes
Lucid Noon Sunset Blush
Alli Logout (New Orleans 2015)
17-year-old bb gay Micha has just moved into The Palace - a basement full of queer femme Dominatrix, lovers and misfits. They are beautiful, carefree and as young as the night. This film contains strong language and sexual content. 34 minutes.
Army of Love
Alexa Karolinski & Ingo Niermann (Berlin 2016)
Romantic love is saturated with commoditization. The socialistic premise behind “free love” crumbles when desiring competition gets in the way, and in the age of hook-up apps, the possibility of free sex represents the liberalization, not the liberation, of love. Alexa Karolinski and Ingo Niermann engage these issues with Army of Love (2016), a video campaign introducing a propositional regiment of soldiers diverse in age and appearance and tasked with solving the persistent social malaise of dire loneliness. The docu-fictional video is in part a utopian proposal framed by conversations questioning the basic premises of love and justice. This film contains nudity. 40 minutes.
Who Will Fuck Daddy?
Lasse Långström (Sweden 2017)
A dive deep into the collective subconscious where the man's stinking corpse decomposes into nourishing soil from which we are born again, and rise to the surface with a new feminine way of thinking / feeling and unexpected perversions. This film contains explicit imagery and sexual content - not recommended for children. 60 minutes.
A/Public : a group show of femme / queer asian artists
Show dates: Jan 14 - March 5 2018
Opening Program: January 17 @7p
Brodsky Gallery Hours:
MTWTh: 10 AM – 11 PM
F: 10 AM – 5 PM
S: noon – 5 PM
S: 6 PM – 11 PM
A/PUBLIC : a group show of femme / queer Asian artists, is a convening of artists of a particular community, not only calling upon shared identity, but also assembling toward differential cultural learning and political processing; same cities, component archives. Here, at the Kelly Writers House, we mark a space and time to call for our audience, share our practice, test our designations, and navigate what onward looks like to us. Up for discussion, by and for us: How to bear illegible and erasable archives into a future? How to tease the topos of diaspora into local entity? How to make together for each other?
A/PUBLIC, on show through the beginning of March, will feature painting, prints, and videowork from 15 Philadelphia/New York artists. Also available for critical browsing: a temporary library of the artists’ collected books & ephemera, and a print object of texts from local artists, writers, and kin. This public program — featuring a lecture by JOAN OH, a reading by OKI SOGUMI, a video screening by EVA WǑ, and a performance by MAYA YU ZHANG — will open with a reception at 7PM.
**ARTISTS ON SHOW**
Soumya Dhulekar, Quinha Faria, Charlotte Greene, Adrienne Hall, Cole Lu, LuLu Meng, Marria Nakhoda, Joan Oh, Andrienne Palchick, Provisional Island, Cecilia Salama, Monika Uchiyama, Alina Wang, Eva Wǒ, and Maya Yu Zhang.
This group show and program are co-curated by Adrienne Hall, Monika Uchiyama, and Connie Yu.
event page: www.facebook.com/events/202010040348947/
