CENTER FOR QUEER PRAIRIE STUDIES
March 3, 2023 – May 5, 2023
With support from the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, The Claremore Museum of History, OSU’s Center for Poets and Writers, Studio 66, Aaru Entertainment, The Goff Center for the Continuous Present, and Oklahomans for Equality, Tulsa Artist Fellow Karl Jones presented a large-scale group exhibition of the Center for Queer Prairie Studies.
The exhibition's opening also featured an inaugural presentation of the Oklahoma Fashion Alliance in the form of a fashion show with activations taking place throughout the streets of the Tulsa Arts District, including the Tulsa Artist Fellowship Archer Annex gallery and Aaru Entertainment.
This parafunction exhibition featured work by dozens of local artists representing decades of experience in the Tulsa community alongside presentations of queer prairie history in the form of authentic and fabricated archival materials and historically inspired installations. Furniture, paintings, and personal belongings of queer Prairie icons, including Adah Robinson, Bruce Goff, Lynn Riggs, and Olinka Hrdy rest alongside work by contemporary established and emerging 2SLGBTQ+ Prairie artists, such as Pat Gordon, Carle Jackson, Matt Moffett, Lydia Cheshewalla, Brad Lovett, and Chris VanDenhende. Blending fact, fiction, art and historical record, reimagined pasts, creative presents, and radical queer futures emerge as C.Q.P.S. seeks to inspire a sense of wonder and awe at the depth and breadth of cultural contributions made by its fore-queers and those leading the way forward creatively in the region’s 2SLGBTQ+ community today. Prairie as a setting will center the land and our relationship to it within the context of queer visual and performance culture regionally and nationally.
Prominent working artists and queer community members whose works and/or objects are included in the exhibition include Pat Gordon, Lynn Riggs, Charles Bell, Lydia Cheshewalla, Karl Jones, Grace Fallon, Carle the Artist, Brad Lovett, Parker D. Wayne and the Oklahoma Fashion Alliance, Iván Alvarez, Chris VanDenhende, Matt Moffet and more. Additionally, C.Q.P.S. presents a slate of events where visitors engage with each other and the 2SLGBTQ+ community through artistic collaboration, fashion shows, film screenings and lectures, performance art presentations, site-specific installation interactions, and more.
ABOUT FLAGSHIP
Tulsa Artist Fellowship inaugurated its Flagship public project space located at 112 N Boston Ave E, Tulsa, OK 74103 in Tulsa’s historic downtown district. The 2,421 square-foot building was designed as an integrated and dynamic platform for arts-centered community exchange.
Flagship programming includes screenings, panel/roundtable discussions, lectures, artist talks and interviews, literary resources, workshops, symposiums, as well as performances and public artworks, sound installations, and more.