Cabinet of Queeriosities

Cabinet of Queeriosities presents art from the Tang Teaching Museum collection using a queer theory lens to initiate a dialogue about what it means to “queer the collection.” The artworks were selected around six pillars of queer experience: joy, resistance, pain, sexuality, privacy, and community, but in the spirit of queerness, many of the artworks in the show speak to multiple of these experiences simultaneously. The exhibition takes the form of miniature re-creations of each artwork, installed in a bureau in the Tang Atrium. Visitors can rearrange these tiny artworks and interact with an exhibition journal, a library, and take away free safer sex supplies and other resources. As a whole, the project challenges conventional museum practices and the historical exclusion of queer people and queer art from the art historical canon.