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| Caption: Preparing for the installation of, "Standing on the Shoulders of Queer Martyrs and Saints," my third painting solo at Lichtundfire Gallery shown October of 2019. Click the image above to view the completed installation. |
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| A note of introduction: This page presents high-level information and images concerning the New York City solo gallery and art fair exhibitions 2015–2021. To reference earlier solo projects, kindly e-mail me at cs@christopherstout.com. |
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(Click the image above to reference the Wonderment of Otherness exhibition page.) WONDERMENT OF OTHERNESS Exhibition Events: Fall Cocktails at Lichtundfire/ LES Gallery Art Night (during Armory Show Week) Lichtundfire is pleased to present and welcomes all to “Wonderment of Otherness”, an exhibition of new monochrome paintings by New York City-based artist Christopher Stout (pronouns: he/him/they) concerning queer abstraction. This exhibition marks his/their fourth solo exhibition at Lichtundfire. Stout’s work intends to surround us with the notion of radical joy and a vision of queerness as found in our imaginations. In the artist’s own words: “I would suggest that queer abstraction might be most easily defined as activist art about the queer experience that does not employ representation of the human figure. Queer abstraction, along with Black abstraction, Feminist abstraction, and even Arte Povera are 4 distinct types of sociopolitical protest work birthed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which primarily eschew the use of figuration. In providing additional context, art critic and curator Eric Sutphin theorizes that contemporary artists practicing queer abstraction, 'are in close dialogue with their forbears, and bring to the milieu of queer abstraction a new set of social, economic, and political concerns…including a series of questions: What is the relationship between queerness and formalism? Without explicit political references, how can abstract work transmit the urgency of its content?' Within the 8 new monochrome paintings that are presented as the “Wonderness of Otherness”, there is an investigation of a specific environment in which the painting references would deploy markers of both queerness, and also the nature of sociopolitical abstraction. The works are designated as 'quilt paintings' as the central visual element and topography of the works are textile pieces of Belgian linen and cotton sewn together with wire in a manner akin to quilting. It should be noted that quilting here is not a reference to the AIDS quilt, but rather an extension of the tradition of quilting as a form of political art by marginalized people. Another concentration within these works is to express a linear relationship between queer abstraction and queer theory. Alongside each painting, I have designated a notable academic text, biography, or resource book documenting a spectrum of queer ideas and experiences. Some of these books are longtime friends, and some of the more contemporary works were read as part of my research for these paintings. Whilst these paintings are not designed to illustrate the work of these queer academics, they do hope to activate a through line, manifesting the shared goals within queer abstraction. In evidence of this relationship, I will lean earnestly into the words of queer Cuban American academic José Esteban Muñoz (1967 – 2013), who penned, 'Queerness is not yet here. Queerness is an ideality. Put another way, we are not yet queer. We may never touch queerness, but we can feel it as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality. We have never been queer, yet queerness exists for us as an ideality that can be distilled from the past and used to imagine a future. The future is queerness’s domain.'" |
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(Click the image above to reference The Sound Art Drawings exhibition page.) THE SOUND ART DRAWINGS A drawing solo by queer abstract reductivist painter Christopher Stout (pronouns: he/him and the inclusinve they/them). Stout describes queer abstraction as, "activist work about the queer experience that does not employ representation of the human figure and surrounds us with the notions of radical joy and a vision of queerness as found in our imaginations." Each of these new drawings is premised upon a musical piece written by a queer experimental composer. Here is an exhibition statement in the artists own words, "Thank you for letting me share my work with you. I want to begin with an acknowledgement of Roger Mathew Grant, whose book, “Peculiar Attunements” has been beautifully essential in the ideation of this project. https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823287741/peculiar-attunements/ I’m very keen on my new relationship with Artfare; and to celebrate our partnership, we are pleased to share a series of 11 new monochrome drawings titled, Chosen Family. In a manner of speaking, these monochrome drawings formally highlight a working method of listening to sound art by queer composers. I enjoy an extensive library of sound art from queer composers, spanning from the late 1960’s through new genre music being composed present-day. Conceptually, I find queer sound art and queer abstraction to possess many congruencies. For each drawing, I continuously listened to a cherished piece of sound art written by a queer composer whose work I consider mentorial and a seminal member of the genre. During the listening session, I drew a monochrome formed by the music. We could refer to these monochromes as conversations or mediations, and they allow me to better articulate my process as a queer abstract painter. In respect and gratitude for these composers, I will be donating 20% from the sales of these drawings to support the Ali Forney Center, an organization with a mission to protect LGBTQ youths from the harms of homelessness. Learn more about the Ali Forney Center at https://www.aliforneycenter.org/ |
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STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF QUEER MARTYRS AND SAINTS Lichtundfire is pleased to present “Standing on the Shoulders of Queer Martyrs and Saints,” an exhibition of mixed media paintings by New York based artist Christopher Stout (pronouns: he/him/they) concerning queer abstraction, and his/their third solo show at the gallery. Best known for his/their abstract minimalism, Stout’s fascination and research into the artists making queer work in New York during the late 1960s and early 1970s germinates a new series of paintings that contain an additional dimension of self-actualization. In the artist’s own words… “Since the outset of my discovery as an artist, I’ve always felt a fundamentally queer component within my work. At core, it would be impossible to bring the best of my intellect and creativity into my painting without my queerness being also present. They are inextricably linked. A seeming contradiction to the above sentiment is that my work isn’t experienced as what we’ve come to understand in the art world as 'queer', and I suppose I’ve always felt a sense of dissonance between the creation process that recurs in my studio, and how my work resonates within the structure of Contemporary art. In recent years, I’ve become familiar with queer abstraction, a largely under-represented genre of LGBT art that formed in the 1960’s. More specifically, I’ve discovered a sense of wonderment about the queer abstraction being made in New York City during the late 1970’s; that brief, albeit utopian era existing both 10 years post-Stonewall and prior to the blight of the AIDS plague. Much of the work (both visual and performance) during this timeframe imbues the queer Renaissance energies of hope and liberation, as well as the splendor found in otherness. Through research, I’ve also been reminded that during this time, all genres of artistic expression served as a creative vocabulary for queer people, by reason that art was an inherent part of queer culture. With these ideas in mind, I set about to imagine a group of queer-labeled paintings that underscore and embody these values. In many ways, I experience these paintings as self-portraits, and share them with you with the intention that they will expand the understanding of the inherent possibilities within queer art, and also provide my queer artist peers with a broadened understanding of what it could mean for their work to be defined as queer.” This exhibition will include an artist talk and catalog release on Sunday, October 26. |
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SONIC OPERA Lichtundfire is pleased to announce Sonic Opera, an exhibition of new intimate-sized, abstract reductive paintings by New York based artist Christopher Stout. This marks the second Lichtundfire solo show by the artist, and also his sixth exhibition project with the gallery. Christopher Stout’s first solo exhibition at Lichtundfire was Come Out 2 Show Them in April of 2017. As a metaphor of the words of Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, the French nobleman and ground-breaking scientist who was guillotined during the French revolution due to his aristocratic background, who stated that, “…nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything transforms,” SONIC OPERA is both an expansion of, and a focused convergence on the work from his previous solo exhibition. Stout forms a vocabulary that is the result – in its original sense of res ultima (lat.) – of a synthesis of the visual disciplines of abstract reductive painting, abstract minimal sculpture and sound art composition. Alike chords in music, or the floors of a building in architecture, the volume of a generative process of layering of materials provides the dialectic foundation for each work. All these works are serially congruent layered, with the exception of the top shape layer that bifurcates into porcelain circles or a parallelogram. With this approach, Stout, evokes a visual sense of a musical/ operatic monument – reality shrouded inside of a 5-sided plexiglass box. To that end, the artist remains steadfast in a constituency of replication, connection and reconnection, a mandate of restraint, negative space, aerial mapping, and Stout’s own tenet that, “subjective matter may be provided artifice through insertion into an established system.” Conversely, the installation of these small size paintings hovers aesthetically and philosophically between the reductionist assumption that every thing, and every idea, can be reduced to its more simple and coherent form while emphasizing the imperfections which come with all things created. |
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TENETS OF SEARCH Covert Operations Gallery is pleased to present Tenets of Search, a solo exhibition comprised of a single painting by abstract reductive painter, Christopher Stout. This exhibition dissects the premise that in the words of the artist, "subjective matter may be provided artifice through insertion into an established system." |
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COME OUT 2 SHOW THEM Lichtundfire is pleased to announce Come Out 2 Show Them, an exhibition of intimate-sized, abstract minimal paintings by New York-based artist Christopher Stout. This marks the second New York gallery solo show by the artist, and also his second project with the gallery. Christopher Stout was previously included in the group exhibition, Chewing Tar, Industrial Materials in the Service of Art, curated by Linda Griggs. For this exhibition, Christopher Stout has conceived a new series of paintings, constructed from sanded cylindrical and rectangular-shaped plaster molds, and mounted on Belgian linen on board. This body of work conceptualizes visually the ideas and paradigms of the Western Reductivist movement, while at the same time exploring the creative traditions of the acceptance of transience and imperfection as expressed within the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-sabi. Strikingly similar and purist, but not quite perfect nor identical, the installation of these small size paintings hovers aesthetically and philosophically between the reductionist assumption that every thing and every idea can be reduced to its more simple and coherent form while taking into account, emphasizing, and shedding light on the imperfections which come with all things created. |
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A.O. Gallery Solo Exhibition Dates: April 24—May 17, 2015 (Extended) ArtHelix is pleased to present A.O., an exhibition of paintings by Christopher Stout—the artist’s second project with ArtHelix and his first solo at the gallery. Best known for working with cement and shredded writing, this series marks somewhat of a material departure as many of the works are fashioned from fused plaster cylinders on museum panel. Stout has said of this work: “A.O. is about the discovery of telling a visual story while not using the entirety of the painting’s surface. To accomplish this, I built structural environments within the works that would allow the dynamic to be carried by the internal lines and negative space. A.O. is about an edifice to prominence.” Christopher Stout is the Founder of Bushwick Art Crit Group (BACG), Brooklyn NYC’s nonprofit art think tank. BACG is obsessed with understanding Contemporary Art through the lens of the art & artists in Bushwick. A.O. is on view at ArtHelix April 24th – May 17th, after which works will be shown in a solo presentation at Select Art Fair during NYC Frieze Art Week. |
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LINEAR ANAGRAM Arts in Bushwick is pleased to present Linear Anagram, a solo installation project shown during NYC Armory Arts Week, and exploring societal constructs. |
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