March–June 2021

Timed to coincide with Trans Day of Visibility on March 31, Radical Tenderness: Trans for Trans Portraiture will be curated in partnership with Dr. Eliza Steinbock of Leiden University, the Netherlands. Dr. Steinbock’s work in cultural analysis investigates visual culture mediums like film, digital media, and photography, with a special focus on dimensions of race, gender and sexuality. Though trans portraiture nominally includes a wide swath of gender nonconformity and variance, far more often cisgender artists prefer to depict trans people presenting themselves in costume, like Caitlyn Jenner in a corset, rather than as “authentic” selves, which is to say, like cisgender people would be. For this reason Steinbock will select trans artists working in portraiture whose works redress the ways their lives have been undermined as impossible, nonexistent, or a mere performance. The exhibition will include artists from the United States and Europe.