Liquid Gender

This exhibition took place from 17 February to 4 August 2024

In an exploration of the relationship between gender expression and identity, with a focus on pre-colonial traditions, the Sainsbury Centre presented works by a myriad of internationally acclaimed artists, including new work, UK premieres and new acquisitions.

New Orleans-born Rashaad Newsome (b.1979), whose multi-disciplinary work explores Black and Queer space in art history, presented a new collection of collages that looked to the cultural traditions of the past, the social complexities of the present, and the possibilities of the future. Using objects from the Sainsbury Centre’s collection, the collages were utilised as part of a visual dialogue with African sculptures and masks that positioned them as older forms of technology.

Newsome had also been commissioned to make a new holographic work titled In the Absence of Evidence, We Create Stories (2024), which was added to the exhibition during its run. This new piece transformed various objects from Africa in the Sainsbury Centre’s collection into futuristic cyborgs that poetically spoke about their past, present, and future.

In a UK premiere, American artist Martine Gutierrez (b.1989) showcased her Demons (2018) series in its entirety which depicts the artist as a deity from Aztec, Maya and Yorùbá traditions. Part of her ‘Indigenous Woman’ publication, a 146-page art magazine inspired by glossy magazines, the images were infused with androgynous characteristics.

Afro-indigenous photographer Laryssa Machada (b.1993) and Indigenous creative Antônio Vital Neto Pankararu (b.1997) documented queer Indigenous identities in the Brazilian Northeast in Origem (2020), a series of photographic portraits overlaid with Indigenous motifs accessible through an augmented reality (AR) application designed by pioneering Bolivian digital artist Lucia Grossberger Morales (b. 1952). The result of a research project at the University of Leeds, it drew on centuries of both visibility and oppression of queer people in Brazil.

When artist Leilah Babirye (b.1985) sought asylum in the US after being publicly outed in her native Uganda, she saw drag queens for the first time, which inspired a series of vibrant works on paper. A group of these titled Kuchu Ndagamuntu (Queer Identity Card) (2021), which depicted the many faces and identities of her ambiguously gendered subjects was presented. One of these works has also now been acquired by the Sainsbury Centre – thanks to funding from the Art Fund’s New Collecting Award – and will join the permanent collection.

This exhibition was part of our 2024 What Is Truth? Season

Image: Martine Gutierrez, Queer Rage, Imagine Life-Size, and I’m Tyra, p66-67 from Indigenous Woman, 2018. © Martine Gutierrez; Courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York

Images below: Installation shots. Photo by Kate Wolstenholme.