Exhibition

CP Projects Space at the School of Visual Arts is pleased to present "My-O-My," curated by MA Curatorial Practice Fellow Jasa McKenzie. "My-O-My" celebrates an erotic, queer magazine of the same name from the late 1960s and '70s. In 1972, police in Middletown, New Jersey, entered a bookstore without a warrant and confiscated the publication, which was viewed as profane, resulting in a legal dispute.

The series of works in this exhibition are by the artist Jade Yumang. Each presents one of the 32 pages of the magazine, reproduced on fabric and turned into genderless sculptures. Walking through the space, viewers can experience the publication as lifesize, as if paging through the magazine itself with their whole being.

The subject matter calls back to a time of queer repression and seeks to bring it to light, reminding us to celebrate progress to this day. This small moment in history may have been lost, but it is now remembered for the ways in which freedom and love have triumphed through years of repression. Especially today, freedom of identity and remembrance of the past are more important as we face another oppressive political climate.

Yumang’s series is a way of tracing and abstracting the imagery of gay male archetypes in erotic and pornographic magazines. The shapes do not refer to anything specific, but are visual intermediaries to a culture that always changes. These are then transformed as queer objects that point in many directions, rather than being bound by gender and sexual preconditions.