MASCS: Masculinity Reimagined explores how performances of contemporary masculinities can counteract traditional, binary understandings of gender. Justin Korver, John Paul Morabito, Betsy Odom, Moises Salazar, and Darryl DeAngelo Terrell expose the ways that we culturally define masculinity and how that relates to gender performativity. These artists not only critique cisgender, heteronormative binary understandings of masculinity, but also embrace the performative nature of gender and celebrate non-normative, alternative, and queer masculinities. By encompassing a range of gender and sexual identifications, these artists share their own personal experiences, interpretations, performances, rejections, and embodiments of masculinity. Breaking down the barrier created between masculinity and femininity, they embrace feminist and queer approaches to reimagining our cultural understandings of gender.
The act of queering—or a way to challenge and break down assumptions of identity and power—is a key part of the exhibition. As queering undercuts cultural authority, this exhibition works to queer masculinity toward the dismantling of patriarchal expectations, while showcasing the expression of masculinity in queer, trans, non-binary, and even cis-het individuals. MASCS uses this framework to showcase iterations of masculinity that challenge social norms surrounding gender and celebrate rebellious masculinities. The artists in this exhibition break down traditional gender-based expectations and assert the rise of more fluid understandings of masculinity. This exhibition highlights contemporary reimaginings of masculinity and the vastness of possibility within performances of gender.
MASCS: Masculinity Reimagined was on display at Morlan Gallery at Transylvania University from January 9-27, 2023.
A PDF catalogue of this exhibition is available on UKnowledge.
The Artists
Justin Korver
“I am an artist and educator living and working in San Antonio, Texas. I am originally from a small town in the northwest corner of Iowa and the plains of home taught me to love minimalism. I moved to Holland, Michigan to complete my undergraduate work at Hope College. While in Michigan, I was influenced by mid-century design and discovered a passion for hardware stores. I also lived and worked briefly in New York through the N.Y.C.A.M.S. program where I interned with Phoebe Washburn and she influenced my studio practice. After Michigan, I moved to Texas to pursue my MFA at the University of Texas at San Antonio where my thesis focused on the critique of the social construction of masculinity. Now I teach as a Senior Lecturer of Art at Texas A&M San Antonio where I facilitate courses in Art Appreciation, Latinx Art Appreciation, Visual Studies, Photography, and Honors. I exhibit my artwork extensively with recent solo exhibitions at Blue Star Contemporary and Commercial_Gallery. Recently I have had to opportunity to pursue artist residencies at the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Casa LÜ in Mexico City, Rockland Woods outside Seattle, and the Vermont Studio Center.”
John Paul Morabito
“With sincere blasphemy, I employ the fallen glory of tapestry to reorient the holy image within queer cosmology. My materials – cotton, wool, synthetic gold, glass beads, and digital matter – are at once exquisite and contrived, further reflecting the irresolute tensions between queerness, ethnicity, and the sacred. New worlds are imagined where no resolutions can be made.
I am defiantly a weaver. Through this position, I reconsider tapestry as a modality in which image, matter, technology, and embodiment provide productive conflicts for constructing form. Drag, in all its bombastic and glittering glory, is a guiding sensibility which I engage as a queer methodology to decadently retrace (and undo) faith, history, and legacy. Here, I employ digital interfaces in concert with improvisational handwork to mutate relics, devotional images, and ritual matter into opulent woven memorials that twist time. This temporal folding is further explored by drawing live weaving into videos and performances that engage time-based media through the linear logic of weaving. The resulting objects, videos, and performances are unbound from chrononormativity to rest, uncomfortably, within queer temporality. Released from the tyranny of the present, my work looks toward a future-past horizon where one can exalt queer grace.”
Betsy Odom
Betsy Odom (b. Amory, Mississippi, 1980) is an artist, curator, and educator based in Chicago. They received their MFA from Yale University School of Art and their BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. They have exhibited internationally in group- and solo- exhibitions, including solo exhibitions at the DePaul Art Museum, 4WPS, ThreeWalls Gallery, Hyde Park Art Center, and WomanMade Gallery. They have also exhibited at venues such as the Cleve Carney Museum of Art in DuPage, Journal Gallery in Brooklyn, Corbett vs. Dempsey and Western Exhibitions in Chicago, Amel Bourorina Gallery in Berlin, and Rudolph Projects in Houston, TX. Odom has been the recipient of several fellowships including an Illinois Arts Council Grant, a Chances Dances Critical Fierceness prize, and two grants from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. Their work is part of the West Collection and the collection of the DePaul Museum of Art.
Moises Salazar
Moises Salazar is a non-binary artist based in Chicago, Illinois. Salazar holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Salazar’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at WOAW Gallery, Salon ACME 8, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, NADA, National Museum of Mexican Art, and the Chicago Cultural Center. Represented by Mindy Solomon Gallery Salazar had their inaugural solo exhibition in August 2021.
Salazar has been focused on conceptual and installation-based work. Salazar’s presentation Let’s get Physical facilitated by Filo Sofi Arts was included in HEARSAY:HERESY Spring Break Art Show to much critical acclaim. In Gracias a la Vida Salazar created a chapel to queer ancestry at Red Arrow Gallery. Most recently Salazar’s project Santuario, a large-scale altar, was presented at Skin in the Game, Chicago edition, curated by Zoe Lukov. A Finalist of The QUEERART PRIZE, Salazar’s work has been featured in publications such as The Hispanic Executive, artnet, HYPERALLERGIC, and THE LATINX PROJECT. Salazar has participated in the The Hyde Park Art Center Residency and is a recipient of LuminArts Foundation Arts Fellowship, and 3Arts Make a Wave Grant..
Darryl DeAngelo Terrell
“My name is Darryl DeAngelo Terrell, I'm a Detroit Based artist who primarily works within lens based media (i.e. Photography, Video), performance, and writing. I am also a Curator, DJ, Organizer, and Educator. I received my Master of Fine Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I studies with Xaviera Simmons, Ayanah Moor, Roberto Sifuentes Faheem Majeed. I work under the philosophy of F.U.B.U (This Shit Is For Us*). I'm always thinking about how my work can aid to a larger conversation about blackness, and it many intersectionalities. My work explores the displacement of black and brown people, femme identity, and strength, the black family structure, sexuality, gender, safe spaces for all black bodies, and personal stories, all while keeping in mind the accessibility of art.
I am a 2021 Black Rock Senegal Resident, 2021 Redbull House of Art Resident, 2019/2020 Document Detroit Fellow, 2019 Kresge Arts In Detroit Fellow of Visual Arts, 2019 Artist in Resident at Northeastern Illinois University, 2018 Luminarts Fellow in Visual Arts, 2017/18 Hatch Project Artist in Resident at Chicago Artist Coalition, 2017 Artist in Resident at ACRE, 2017 semifinalist for the Edes Fellowship. I have performed and exhibited work at The Museums of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), Chicago IL, The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Brooklyn, NYC NY, The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, IL, Xpace Cultural Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, The Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, TN, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Scottsdale, AZ and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC.”
Virtual Panel featuring Justin Korver, John Paul Morabito, and Josh Porter
Videos courtesy of Transylvania University - Installation images taken myself