{"id":18648,"date":"2019-11-20T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T17:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=18648"},"modified":"2019-11-18T10:04:19","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T18:04:19","slug":"artist-explores-queer-form-and-sculptural-abstraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/11\/20\/artist-explores-queer-form-and-sculptural-abstraction\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist explores queer form and sculptural abstraction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jade Yumang is a Chicago-based artist who explores the concept of queer form through abstract installations, performances, and sculptures. He says that the crux of a lot of the work that he does revolves around what queer form looks like.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s usually kinda exercised through a lot of archival work, looking at the historiography of how history has been written and what\u2019s kinda swept under the rug,\u201d he says. \u201cI guess what I\u2019m looking for is what\u2019s under that rug in relation to queer history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since his graduation from Parsons School of Design in 2012, Yumang has worked closely with Sara Jimenez as the collaborative team Tatlo. Together they primarily do endurance performances designed to express the ideas of, according to their site, \u201ccultural expectations, personal experiences, systems of restraints, and bodily fatigue.\u201d Recently, Yumang says, collaborating has been challenging, since Jimenez is living and working in New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always good to push ideas against someone else and have that back and forth,\u201d says Yumang. \u201cAgain, we do a lot of physical things together, but it\u2019s hard when we try to share ideas via phone or through an email; we\u2019re better when we\u2019re body to body.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A piece by Jade Yumang, who is speaking at Camosun in November (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It would make sense to expect that Yumang has faced some adversity working within these often-controversial themes. What is surprising, however, is that he met that adversity the most just across the water from us.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was given this show in Vancouver, and then a week before the opening the gallery had to close down my show because of the content of the sexually explicit work that I was doing at that time,\u201d he says. \u201cThis was in Vancouver! And, you know, I was young, and I didn\u2019t know any better. I mean, there was a whole hoopla about it, but I found out that one of the board directors just did not agree with my work. I guess I became more of a recluse in Vancouver in terms of the work that I was doing. I just took a chance in terms of applying for grad school in New York; I got there, and it\u2019s really opened up a different way of looking at queerness for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yumang will be giving a talk at Camosun on a recent series of sculptures based on a 1966 issue of the radical gay publication Drum<\/i>. (Drum<\/i>\u2019s founder, Clark Polak, was arrested in 1969 and later died by suicide.)<\/p>\n

\u201cEach page from this particular issue was digitally scanned and then printed on cotton and then cut, pieced, quilted, and then turned into sculptures with contemporary materials from that era,\u201d says Yumang.<\/p>\n

Yumang is now an assistant professor in the department of Fiber and Material Studies at the Art Institute of Chicago. He says that this role allows him to interact with a younger generation of queer youth and that he recognizes their struggle.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways just focus on the work and even if you feel like you\u2019re doing it on your own or you\u2019re alone there\u2019s always a group of people sharing a similar perspective as you\u2014find those people,\u201d he says. \u201cYou just can\u2019t really completely settle because your lives are always going to be questioned, and you have to be vigilant, but at the same time also try to have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camosun Visual Arts Visiting Artist Lecture Series
\nJade Yumang
\n2 pm Wednesday,\u00a0November 27
\nFree, Fisher 100, Lansdowne
\ncamosun.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jade Yumang is a Chicago-based artist who explores the concept of queer form through abstract installations, performances, and sculptures. He says that the crux of a lot of the work that he does revolves around what queer form looks like. \u201cIt\u2019s usually kinda exercised through a lot of archival work, looking at the historiography of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,244],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-november-20-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18650,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18648\/revisions\/18650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}