Á.R. VÁZQUEZ-CONCEPCIÓN with LAPIS XICALDO

View OUT/LOOK Issue #10 at the Lesbian Poetry Archive.

In the fall of 1990, Vancouver-based artist collective Kiss and Tell presented an exhibition titled Drawing the Line at Cameraworks in San Francisco. The collective presented sexually explicit images of women and invited the women in the public to intervene the images with their own thoughts and opinions, writing on the wall and on the photographs, themselves.

In collaboration with emerging artist Lapis Xicaldo, artist and curator Á.R. Vázquez-Concepción produced a book of photographs from Drawing the Line as they are represented in OUT/LOOK, and is inviting all guests to write on the photographs their thoughts and ideas about the images and the exhibition.

This collection of images —a body of work that stands alone, pending intervention over the photographs themselves— is inspired by the format of the Drawing the Line exhibition, which is introduced in a brief but insightful piece written by JZ Grover. The photographs are of highlights from the OUT/LOOK magazine, specifically number 10, published in the fall 1990.

The goal of our effort is to bring attention to the important gesture by Kiss and Tell in the exhibition Drawing the Line, seeking to re-perform that gesture during the show at the GLBT History Museum, as an homage.

We, the artists and the public, will revisit the gesture of “posting on the wall,” seen today through the lens of contemporary social media, and see how the work by Kiss and Tell in Drawing the Line was visionary in opening concrete, open dialogue about images depicting and representing the varieties of love between women, and the erotica genre in general.

Revisiting Kiss and Tell

Custom book, 13 x 11 inches

Á.R. VÁZQUEZ-CONCEPCIÓN

Angel Rafael Vázquez-Concepción, (b. 1981, Puerto Rico) independent curator and artist based in San Francisco, California, founder of Cranium Corporation, a platform for fostering artists, exhibitions, and education. His work oscillates between the rigor and structure of research and writing and the design of exhibitions. He privileges collaboration and is a firm believer in art as a tool for education and civics. In 2015 Vázquez-Concepción obtained a Master’s in curatorial practice from the California College of the Arts. He has curated exhibitions at the Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art, the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, and ÁREA: Space for Projects, in Caguas, Puerto Rico. In San Francisco and Oakland, California, he has contributed exhibitions to the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Minnesota Street Project, CTRL + SHFT Collective, the Red Poppy Art House, and the GLBT History Museum. He is currently pursuing a second Master’s in social sciences education at San Francisco State University.

LAPIS XICALDO

Lapis V. Xicaldo (b. 1988) hails from Tempe, Arizona, but relocated to Oakland, CA as of 2016 in order to pursue active idealism and community building, after attaining a BA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Arizona State University. Her work in poetry and fiction primarily relates to queer women’s narratives and her nonfiction focuses on unconventional relationships and marginalized identities. The transformation of bodies — particularly queer and disabled ones; as well as labor and economic systems, through benevolent cyberpunk potential is a fascination of hers that she hopes to actualize into a better reality.