Where can you see images of the first African-American drag queen crowned "Ms Gay Charleston, South Carolina, 1978” alongside beautiful 1958 beefcake boys and gun-toting cowgirl lesbians? Where do trans crafters meet specters of Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Emily Duckinson?  

CHRONOTOPIA, the National Queer Arts Festival’s annual visual arts exhibition explores the past, present and future of queer people that will permanently alter the way you think about queer art and history.

In keeping with the theme of this year’s National Queer Arts Festival, “Making History,” a panel of distinguishedcurators (Cheryl Dunye, Tirza True Latimer, Rudy Lemcke, Matt McKinley, Pamela Peniston and Tina Takemoto) present an exhibition that engages Queer History as its catalyst.

This exhibition captures the multiple dimensions of queer time and place; locates queer lives in relation to complex communities; and remembers historical moments that are framed and re-framed by the present. It also offers alternative approaches to the historical record that challenge a fixed chronology of events and complicate the idea of memory.

The exhibition’s multidimensional visions of our queer history suggest limitless potentialities and vantage points, where conflicting desires and narratives coexist, where ghosts converse with the living, where we imagine impossible possibilities, and where we record our histories in new and challenging ways--Chronotopia.

Meet and mingle with artists from California and beyond over reception drinks and nosh! Performances during the reception by members of EG Crichton’s The Lineage Project sponsored by the the GLBT Historical Society. Exhibition and reception funding by the Zellerbach Family Foundation and the CA LGBT Arts Alliance.

CHRONOTOPIA is presented as part of the SOMArts Affordable Space Program. SOMArts receives funding from the San Francisco Arts Commission with support from Grants for the Arts / Hotel Tax Fund.

Exhibition Coordinator - Adrienne Skye Roberts

Participating Artists:

Bren Ahearn, Elliot Anderson,Mara Baldwin, Terry Berlier, Sarah Biscarra-Dilley, Tammy Rae Carland, Chris Carroll and Alix P. Shedd, Rodrigo Cervantes, Lenore Chinn, EG Crichton, Jaime Shearn Coan, Sarolta Jane Cump, Flora Darby, Greg Day, Bug Davidson, Bill Domonkos, Dino Dinco, Miki Foster, Gary Freeman, Katie Gilmartin, Brent Godfrey, Mitch Gould, Nicki Green, Debbie Grossman, Jamil Hellu, Sailor Holladay, John Howard, Bill Hsu, Angela Jimenez, Dorian Katz, David King, Peter Kingstone, Lost Bois, Peter Max Lawrence, Nomy Lamm, Ace Lehner, Ali Liebegott, Diana Martin, Kyle McGuire, Joanne Mitchell, Annie Murphy, Charissa King-O’Brien, John Palatinus, Michael Pfleghaar, Elissa Perry, Peter Pizzi, Paul Baker Prindle, Andrew Printer, Z.A. Martohardjono, Jennifer Rarick, Sean Michael Rau, Laura Rifkin, Silvia Ros, Clio Sady, Jeremy Sanders, Hilary Schwartz, Jules Shendelman, Matt Smith, Julie Sutherland, Glenn Tramantano and Nathan Vincent

Exhibit Design - Matt McKinley / McKinley Art Solutions