Wed August 14th Open 11 AM–5 PM
EXHIBITIONS
Presented by YBCA | November 9, 2020–January 24, 2021
b. 1985, Chicago, Illinois
Lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee
How to take up space when you’ve only been given the margin, 2019
Pink neon form, mini-LCD screen, and Twitter-enabled software
Courtesy the artist
How to take up space when you’ve only been given the margin reminds us of the ongoing relevance of LGBTQ activist and icon Sylvia Rivera, who co-founded with Marsha P. Johnson the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), an organization that provided shelter and support for homeless queer youth. Video footage of Rivera’s speech “Y’all Better Quiet Down Now” at the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally in NYC plays more or less steadily, based on Twitter-enabled software scanning the frequency of the #LGBTQ hashtag. You can tweet with the hashtag #LGBTQ to increase the video’s legibility.
Above, the neon sculpture recalls ACT UP’s pink triangle, created during the height of the AIDS crisis in the United States, with its pressing reminder that SILENCE = DEATH.
To engage with this work virtually, watch the video and scroll through the photographs of acierto’s artwork.
Experience How to take up space when you’ve only been given the margin in person in the windows of YBCA’s 701 Mission Plaza.
You can tweet with the hashtag #LGBTQ to increase the video’s legibility at YBCA.
alejandro t. acierto is an artist, musician, and curator whose work is largely informed by legacies of colonialism found within human relationships to technology and material cultures. Noted for his “insatiable” performance by the New York Times, acierto has performed extensively throughout the US and abroad and can be heard on Carrier, Albany, New Focus, Parlour Tapes+, and Avant Media Records and has issued a solo record on Prom Night Records.
How to take up space when you’ve only been given the margin
One two three potions a secret word/ and soon you’ll see a freer world
Solastalgia
Tomorrow We Inherit the Earth
Future Ancestors
Super Furs for the Super Futures
Sin Sol / No Sun
Portable Memories in Rising Seas
Lightroom, Darkroom
LORDVILLE