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LTTR is a feminist genderqueer collective with a flexible project oriented practice. LTTR was founded in 2001 by Ginger Brooks Takahashi, K8 Hardy and Emily Roysdon. [1] LTTR produces a performance series, events, screenings and collaborations. It also released five issues of an annual independent art journal between 2002 and 2006.
The collective is rooted in community and collaborative processes without hierarchy. [2] LTTR is a shifting acronym; it started in 2001 as "Lesbians to the Rescue" and has since stood for phrases ranging from "Lacan Teaches to Repeat" to "Let's Take the Role." [3] LTTR is dedicated to highlighting the work of radical communities whose goals are sustainable change, queer pleasure, and critical feminist productivity. [4]
In contrast to more dogmatic approaches to identity, LTTR takes a more fluid and questioning approach to identity and authorship. [5] It seeks to create and build a context for a culture of critical thinkers whose work not only speaks in dialogue with one another, but consistently challenges its own form by shifting shape and design to best respond to contemporary concerns. According to Holland Cotter of The New York Times , "The idea of moving art out of the control of the professional art world underlies the thinking of many of the individuals and collectives associated with LTTR." [6] LTTR's members have also used their bands, poster projects, workshops and sit-ins as media for exploring the political possibilities of feminist pop-cultural influence. [7]
LTTR Journal has a zine aesthetic and contains a curated selection of theory, essays, and images including photography, drawings and prints. [1] The inaugural issue of the collective's art journal was entitled "Lesbians to the Rescue," followed by "Listen Translate Translate Record," "Practice More Failure," "Do You Wish to Direct Me?," and finally "Positively Nasty."
It is produced collectively by many young gay and lesbian artists and feminists. [8] The editorial debates of LTTR and decision making surrounding the printed journal were based on the idea of making a significant contribution to contemporary feminist genderqueer concerns. It was edited by consensus in long-process editorial sessions. Each issue was initiated with an international open call and through interpersonal relationships from within their communities. [9] Each submission was considered independently and in regards to the working themes of the journal. Each issue included handmade artists' multiples and was published in a print run of 1000 copies. Ulrike Müller joined LTTR in 2005 and Lanka Tattersal was an editor and collaborator for issue 4. [10]
As their project expanded, LTTR exhibited the journal at venues including Artists Space in New York City, the Generali Foundation in Vienna, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany. [11]
Queercore is a cultural/social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the punk subculture and a music genre that comes from punk rock. It is distinguished by its discontent with society in general, and specifically society's disapproval of the LGBT community. Queercore expresses itself in a DIY style through magazines, music, writing and film.
Diane DiMassa is an American feminist artist, noted as creator of the alternative cartoon character Hothead Paisan, Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist, whose wild antics have been described as rage therapy for the marginalised. DiMassa is also active in oil painting and street art.
Jonathan David Katz is an American activist, art historian, educator and writer. He is currently Associate Professor of Practice in Art History and Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
The feminist art movement in the United States began in the early 1970s and sought to promote the study, creation, understanding and promotion of women's art. First-generation feminist artists include Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, Suzanne Lacy, Judith Bernstein, Sheila de Bretteville, Mary Beth Edelson, Carolee Schneeman, Rachel Rosenthal, and many other women. They were part of the Feminist art movement in the United States in the early 1970s to develop feminist writing and art. The movement spread quickly through museum protests in both New York and Los Angeles, via an early network called W.E.B. that disseminated news of feminist art activities from 1971 to 1973 in a nationally circulated newsletter, and at conferences such as the West Coast Women's Artists Conference held at California Institute of the Arts and the Conference of Women in the Visual Arts, at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C..
The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (LLMA), formerly the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, is a visual art museum in SoHo, Lower Manhattan, New York City. It mainly collects, preserves and exhibits visual arts created by LGBTQ artists or art about LGBTQ+ themes, issues, and people. The museum, operated by the Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation, offers exhibitions year-round in numerous locations and owns more than 22,000 objects, including, paintings, drawings, photography, prints and sculpture. It has been recognized as one of the oldest arts groups engaged in the collection and preservation of gay art. The foundation was awarded Museum status by the New York State Board of Regents in 2011 and was formally accredited as a museum in 2016. The museum is a member of the American Alliance of Museums and operates pursuant to their guidelines. As of 2019, the LLMA was the only museum in the world dedicated to artwork documenting the LGBTQ experience.
K8 Hardy is an American artist and filmmaker. Hardy's work spans painting, sculpture, video, and photography and her work has been exhibited internationally at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Modern, Tensta Konsthalle, Karma International, and the Dallas Contemporary. Hardy's work is included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art. She is a founding member of the queer feminist artist collective and journal LTTR. She lives and works in New York, New York.
Carrie Moyer is an American painter and writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Moyer's paintings and public art projects have been exhibited both in the US and Europe since the early 1990s, and she is best known for her 17-year agitprop project, Dyke Action Machine! with photographer Sue Schaffner. Moyer's work has been shown at the Whitney Biennial, the Museum of Arts and Design, and the Tang Museum, and is held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She serves as the director of the graduate MFA program at Hunter College, and has contributed writing to anthologies and publications like The Brooklyn Rail and Artforum.
Harmony Hammond is an American artist, activist, curator, and writer. She was a prominent figure in the founding of the feminist art movement in 1970s New York.
Sheila Pepe is an artist and educator living and working in Brooklyn, New York. She is a prominent figure as a lesbian cross-disciplinary artist, whose work employs conceptualism, surrealism, and craft to address feminist and class issues. Her most notable work is characterized as site-specific installations of web-like structure crocheted from domestic and industrial material, although she works with sculpture and drawing as well. She has shown in museums and art galleries throughout the United States.
Nina Kuo is a Chinese American painter, photographer, sculptor, author, video artist and activist who lives and works in New York City. Her work examines the role of women, feminism and identity in Asian-American art. Kuo has worked in partnership with the artist Lorin Roser.
Allyson Mitchell is a Toronto-based maximalist artist, working predominantly in sculpture, installation and film. Her practice melds feminism and pop culture to trouble contemporary representations of women, sexuality and the body largely through the use of reclaimed textile and abandoned craft. Throughout her career, Mitchell has critiqued socio-historical phobias of femininity, feminine bodies and colonial histories, as well as ventured into topics of consumption under capitalism, queer feelings, queer love, fat being, fatphobia, genital fears and cultural practices. Her work is rooted in a Deep Lez methodology, which merges lesbian feminism with contemporary queer politics.
Every Ocean Hughes, formerly known as Emily Roysdon, is a multimedia interdisciplinary artist based in New York and Stockholm. They also work as a writer and currently hold the position of Professor of Art at Konstfack in Stockholm, Sweden. Hughes employs various mediums such as performance, photography, printmaking, text, video, curating, and collaboration to express their artistic vision.
Ulrike Müller is a contemporary visual artist. Müller is a member of the New York-based feminist genderqueer group LTTR as well as an editor of its eponymous journal. She also represented Austria at the Cairo Biennale in 2011. She is currently a professor and co-chair of Painting at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
Karen Heagle is an American artist, known for autobiographical and art historical subject matter. Her work comments on contemporary culture through a queer perspective with a focus on feminist agendas.
Ginger Brooks Takahashi is an American artist based in Brooklyn, New York, and North Braddock, Pennsylvania. A self-identified “punk,” Takahashi grew up in Oregon. She co-founded the feminist genderqueer collective and journal LTTR and the Mobilivre project, a touring exhibition and library. She was also a member of MEN (band). Her work consists of a collaborative project-based practice. Takahashi is currently an adjunct professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University.
Leah DeVun is an American contemporary artist and historian who lives in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BA and PhD from Columbia University and is an associate professor at Rutgers University, where she teaches women's and gender history.
Stephen Lloyd Varble was a notorious American performance artist, playwright, and fashion designer in lower Manhattan during the 1970s. His work challenged both mainstream conceptions of gender and exposed the materialism of the established, institutionalized art world.
Troy Montes-Michie is an American interdisciplinary painter and collage artist.
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