We’re honoring Pride Month with a look at LGBTQ+ artists who use languages of craft, textile, handiw

We’re honoring Pride Month with a look at LGBTQ+ artists who use languages of craft, textile, handiwork, and assemblage to express queer themes and identities. Inspired by woven and assembled forms, this selection of artworks reminds us of how seemingly small-scale, everyday gestures can create connection, community, visibility, and change. In Diedrick Brackens’ when no softness came (2019), a bright green figure lies backwards atop a galloping steed. Inspired by the imagery of Black cowboys, the artist abandons tropes of equestrian portraiture—which shows horseback, typically male victors in heroic and commanding poses—and acknowledges other experiences of masculinity: of softness, vulnerability, respite, and becoming. Across Brackens’ practice, traditions of weaving, material histories of fiber, and striking figuration come together in an exploration of queer Black identity and cultural mythology. Brackens uses hand-dyed cotton, a crop that connects directly to the history and labor of enslaved African Americans in the U.S., as a way to “pay tribute to those who came before me.” Together with the loose, excess threads on the surface, slight sag of the textile, and irregular bottom edge, this piece equally contains visual allusions to queerness, difference, and fluidity. ⁠Posted by Joseph ShaikewitzDiedrick Brackens (American, born 1989). when no softness came, 2019. Cotton and acrylic yarn. Brooklyn Museum, Purchased with funds given by The LIFEWTR Fund at Frieze New York 2019, 2019.12. © Diedrick Brackens 2019 (Photo: courtesy of the artist and Various Small Fires Los Angeles and Seoul⁠ -- source link

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