SAN JOSE–Exhibit: Queer Threads

Queer Threads

OPENS TO MEMBERS ON MAY 11, 2023 / OPEN TO THE PUBLIC ON MAY 12, 2023 – AUGUST 20, 2023

Guest Curator: John Chaich 

Turner, Gilliland, Finlayson and Porcella Galleries – San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles

Queer Threads is a traveling group exhibition and coffee-table book exploring contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer experiences through fiber and textile traditions.

This latest iteration of the 2014 exhibition at the Leslie-Lohman Museum in NYC spotlights 35 artists with roots in the American West, Northwest, and Southwest, as well as work from the museum’s collection. From the impeccably finished to the intentionally raw, many works are fully executed through thread-based processes such as crochet, embroidery, quilting, and weaving, while others interact with animation, clay, light, metal, and photography. Each artist’s use of material choices and technical finishes suggest poetic and subversive intentions.

Although all of the featured artists are LGBTQ-identified or allies, not all of the content explicitly is—and that’s perfectly queer in this context. By breaking through binaries of art and craft, male and female, gay and straight and beyond, the exhibition embraces differences and encourages experimental approaches to hand and machine textile practices.

For more information, visit https://www.sjquiltmuseum.org/.

This project is supported by a Humanities for All Project Grant.