Tag: Proposals on Queer Play and the Ways Forward

Tag: Proposals on Queer Play and the Ways Forward
02.02.2018 - 12.08.2018

Play/DisPlay at ICA: A queer mixer that invites cosplay, crossplay, fursuit, trashdrag, gender bending, and more.
Artist tour: February 14, 5–6pm, Nayland Blake discusses Tag
Free For All with Performance by Matt Savitsky: April 11, 6:30–9pm
Panel and Playthrough with Nica Ross, Colleen Macklin, and Adrienne Shaw: May 19
Crotchet Jam with Ramekon O’Arwisters: June 23

The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania (ICA) presents Tag: Proposals on Queer Play and the Ways Forward, a group exhibition organized by guest curator and artist Nayland Blake, and on view at ICA from February 2 to August 12, 2018. Tag explores how the expanding influence of digital and online technologies, fandom subcultures, and artistic discourse has created new possibilities for queer identification, changing how personal roles and forms of expression are defined in contemporary society.

Based on the premise that the cultures of role play, sexual play, and digital play have all flourished beyond the boundaries of art structures, this exhibition provides a gathering place and platform for the exploration of queer play created by individuals and groups from the worlds of game design and theory, performance, kink, and activism. For the exhibition, Blake illuminates these new and evolving forms of representation and examines the implications these developments have had on art and social action through a curatorial approach that draws on their own preoccupation with themes of interracial desire, same-sex love, and racial and sexual bigotry.

Exhibiting artists in Tag: Proposals on Queer Play and the Ways Forward are Sharang Biswas, Lee Blalock, Tommy Bruce, A.K. Burns, Clement Hil Goldberg, K8 Hardy, Cliff Hengst, JunTae TeeJay Hwang, Arnold J. Kemp, Savannah Knoop, Saeborg, Larry Mantello, Ramekon O'Arwisters, Cupid Ojala, Nica Ross, Matt Savitsky, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Dusty Shoulders, Buzz Slutzky, Frederick Weston, and Robert Yang.

Organized by Nayland Blake, Katherine Sachs (CW'69) and Keith L. Sachs (W'67) Guest Curator, with support from Laporte Associate Curator Kate Kraczon. ICA gratefully acknowledges support from the Katherine and Keith Sachs Guest Curator Program.