- This event has passed.
Asian Art Museum – Global Art Dialogues: Queer Futures
March 30, 2021 @ 7:00 pm PDT - 8:00 pm PDT
“Queerness is essentially about the rejection of a here and now and an insistence on potentiality for another world.” A panel of contemporary artists who transform notions of queerness in their work considers this foundational statement by cultural theorist José Esteban Muñoz in a virtual conversation moderated by artist, writer, and curator Việt Lê. Tina Takemoto and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto – both featured in the exhibition After Hope: Videos of Resistance – join the duo behind Australia’s Club Ate, Bhenji Ra and Justin Shoulder, to investigate the power and failures of queer futurity and deconstruct otherworldly yearnings and imagination fatigue. Using science fiction and speculative narrative, mythology and future folklore, these artists are redefining the ways we can dream and exist.
About Global Art Dialogues
This program is a part of Global Art Dialogues, a series of programs connecting artists around the world to explore the pertinent issues of our time. Amid shifting social landscapes, the museum’s commitment to invest in emerging and established artists, elevate marginalized voices, and curate through a global lens of equity, justice, and collaboration is stronger now than ever. Whether these events are in person or virtual, we aim to create spaces to challenge and transcend physical, sociopolitical, and imaginary borders in order to empower change. By bringing together creatives from Bay Area and global communities, we are exploring the possibilities of what can be and what we can accomplish through a spirit of radical collaboration.
Presented in conjunction with and featuring artists from After Hope: Videos of Resistance, currently on view at the Asian Art Museum. To learn more about the artists in After Hope, go to afterhope.com.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is a visual artist, performer, and curator who explores complex histories of colonialism and the intersections of queerness and Islam through a multimedia practice.
Club Ate is a collective formed in 2014 by multiform artists Justin Shoulder and Bhenji Ra whose practice traverses video, performance, and club events with an emphasis on community activation.
Artist, writer, and curator Việt Lê is professor of visual studies at California College of the Arts and author of “Return Engagements: The Traumas of Modernity and History in Sài Gòn and Phnom Penh.”
Tina Takemoto is an artist and filmmaker who explores hidden dimensions of same- sex intimacy in Asian American history by manipulating archival and found footage.