For this week’s assignment I will be delving into queering the spaces I have recently dealt with—from gallery spaces to book fairs. Departing from that thought, I will be exploring the intersections and multiplicities that involve the institutions that limited (or enhanced) my performance through the week. As it will be reiterated in future submissions, the place and time your writer (Jose Carrazana) finds himself is not the most stable. A senior thesis, and life complications cloud the life examined, yet the levels of concern remain considerable and therefore one must unpack the struggles lived. That being said, this week has not been a pleasant one, from the beginning it has involved a lot of dissociation, and therefore some accounts written here will be vague, not because they wish to be, but due to the hectic pace that has been lived thus far.

If one were to start from the beginning of the week, I would start by saying that it involved plenty of sleep deprivation and bland dinners, it did not start till Thursday. The day started with an early consultation with an adviser to discuss the major requirements and future steps to complete my bachelor’s, which include major indoctrination into advanced (seldom undergrad, mostly grad- level) courses recounting the theories and experiences of dead white men (Advanced Ethics and Political Philosophy Courses).¹ After submitting an appeal for an independent study where a more diverse reading list would tackle more imminent (global) issues, I attended an exhibition in Chelsea, NYC, full of humour and graphic content.

Scrapbook Love Story Memory and the Vernacular Photo Album, was an exploration on how photography, early 20th century Kodak technology, democratized the use of photography, allowing new modes of representation to be introduced into mass culture, i.e. women’s gender roles, a black population contesting their own representation, war experiences, etc.. This show, like my discussion here, attempts to explore the dialectic, or the conversations between individuals and their spaces, and the problems raised in these interactions.

The exhibition space at the Walther Collection, the place of the exhibit, is located in the 7th floor of a typical multi-purpose building.² In the area an agglomeration of different galleries and cultural organizations can be found in this building and the neighboring area, like a sea of corporate art waiting for affluent audiences to consume it, in the hope of tax-deductible ‘cultural capital’. To the seeming eye the elitism displayed by the predominantly white, male, and gay audience cannot be dismissed, and yet, once in the small exhibition space one only forgets where one is; and, the small white space, desolated, reminds one of the privilege of being, and not being. That is, the unknown access the public has to these kinds of exhibitions —the only limiting factor hindering a bigger audience is the saturated-ness of contemporary life, and diverging taste—a lack of interest in this content by a mass culture focused on seemingly hetero-normative hobbies. In this line of thought, this assumption of an elitist gallery space creates a sphere where art attendance and interest becomes ‘other’, the queer, the non-accessible by a middle working class, and could be farthest from the truth. What this elongated tangent of mine attempts is to raise an inquiry on the idiosyncrasies and misconceived stereotypes of a  proper audience that becomes the image of the gallery space— that being the well-groomed and financially secured white (typically gay) ‘Chelsea man’. Myself, not being either white and/or rich, accessed this space without question and explored and conceptualized the gallery in my own way.

Two days after attending this gallery, I visited the NY Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1.³ This was my first time at this annual gathering, although having heard of it several times, years prior. My hesitance to attend was always  due to this underlying belief that it was pretentious, and full of the plasticity that I assumed certain social cults (circles) have. After experiencing this fair, my own self conceptualized the whole experience as I formerly intuitively felt— audience as pretentious, at surface level at most. Yet, parts of my inner consciousness did come to see this event as a gathering of a community in NYC, that I have not experienced to this capacity before. The presence of so many bodies, gendered, sexed bodies with different experiences and identities was refreshing and challenging, and angry. Angry that we cannot always have that. That any other day we have to go back to the non-individualized/individualized apparel of the fashion line of comfort and sports, to the personal and safe ways of an unquestioning and un-transgressive society. To the culture of domesticity and passiveness that inhabits the college campus, at least at the state school level. My view may sound elitist, a cry to attend a small liberal arts college in New England, but do not attack me yet, I am only but claiming the potential for this kind of movement, I am only hopeful and excited of the possibilities un-lived at my current geographic location.

 

1 For example, Bernard Williams, John Rawls, Stephen Stich, Isaiah Berlin,
Martin Heiddeger, among others.

2 For more information visit The Walther Collection Project Space
526 West 26th Street, Suite 718 ,New York, NY 10001, USA
Tel: +1 212 352 0683 Email: contact@walthercollection.com

3 MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101

 

Michel Foucault.  A queer intellectual. Pictured below.

This is a personal blog with an emphasis on the personal experience of the writer, Jose Carrazana. It explores the intersection of politics and gender in the day-to-day happenings of I, Jose (not exclusive of other areas–race, class, sexuality, etc.). Here, I aim to explore the social constructions that affect the community, but most especially me. Never forgetting the importance of humor, as artist Vito Acconci once said, “What humor does is allow a second thought, a reconsideration”.¹ Using this as a point of departure, this blog will recount my experience as a queer man, in my senior year of college, and how I explore the mediated spaces that I inhabit. This blog will be abundant with sarcasm, commentary, and insight into the challenges that are faced by (queer) college students entering the (mostly hetero-normative) labor force–the expectations and responsibilities that are asked out of a young adult. The blog will use third-wave feminist and queer theories to further elucidate the queer experience, hence the picture of Judith Butler as the header image of the blog.

1. Ward, Frazer, Jennifer Bloomer, Mark C Taylor, and Vito Acconci. 2002. Vito Acconci. London: Phaidon.