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| Image Caption: Preparing for the installation of, "Standing on the Shoulders of Queer Martrys 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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| Artist Notes: I'm sharing top level information and images on the New York City solo gallery and art fair I've exhibitied 2014 – 2021. At some point, I look forward to expanding into my San Francisco solo projects 2000 – 2006. Need a deeper dive of any of these or other exhibitions? Kindly e-mail me at cs@christopherstout.com. |
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| Image Caption: A different way of seeing. Here are details of Queer monochrome paintings for "Wonderment of Otherness." Click on the image above to view the dedicated solo exhibition page. |
| For Immediate Release Christopher Stout: Wonderment of Otherness at Lichtundfire Fall Cocktails at Lichtundfire/ LES Gallery Art Night (during Armory Show Week) Press Release 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.'" About the Artist Christopher Stout was born and raised in Maryland and is a New York City-based artist working in Queer abstraction. Stout has shown extensively with Lichtundfire, including multiple group exhibition projects and the solo exhibitions “Come Out 2 Show Them” in April 2017, “Sonic Opera” in May of 2018, and “Standing on the Shoulders of Queer Martyrs and Saints” in October 2019. Gallery Information Lichtundfire was established in 2015, with a visual program emphasizing on nonrepresentational, conceptual, and abstract art; especially minimal, color field, geometrical, straight edge, abstract expressionist painting, lyrical abstraction, and process work. For more information and images of “Wonderment of Otherness”, please contact Priska Juschka at info@lichtundfire.com, or via telephone 917-675-7835, or visit www.lichtundfire.com General Gallery Information Lichtundfire, 175 Rivington Street Storefront (between Clinton & Attorney), |
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| Image Caption: A different way of seeing. Here are details of Queer monochrome drawings for "Chosen Family." Click on the image above to view the dedicated solo exhibition page. |
For Immediate Release Press Release I’m very keen on my new relationship with Artfare; and to celebrate our partnership, I’ve drawn a series of 11 new monochromes titled, “Chosen Family.” To articulate about the work, I wanted to utilize these monochrome drawings to formally highlight a working method of listening to sound art by Queer composers in my Brooklyn art studio. I have an extensive library of sound art from Queer composers containing music spanning from the late 1960’s through sound art being made today. Conceptually, I find Queer sound art and Queer abstraction to possess many congruencies. |
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| Image Caption: A different way of seeing. Here is details of Queer abstract reductivist paintings for "Standing on the Shoulders of Queer Martyrs and Saints." Email me please at cs@christopherstout.com if you would like to receive a PDF copy of the exhibition catalog. |
For Immediate Release Press Release 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 I 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.” |
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| Image Caption: A different way of seeing. Here is details of Queer abstract reductivist paintings for "Sonic Opera." For more information about this exhibition, please email me at cs@christopherstout.com |
For Immediate Release Press Release |
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| Image Caption: A different way of seeing. Here is details of Queer abstract reductivist paintings for "Come Out 2 Show Them." For more information about this exhibition, please email me at cs@christopherstout.com |
For Immediate Release Press Release Lichtundfire Gallery, 175 Rivington Street, New York, New York 10002 |
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For Immediate Release Press Release |
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For Immediate Release 2014 New York Armory Art Week |
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