a field of bloom and hum: Expansive Tang Exhibition Presents 100 Years of Art that Celebrate Queer Identities and Communities

More Than 150 Artists’ Works on View, Including Steven Arnold, Nayland Blake, Liz Collins, Tony Feher, Lyle Ashton Harris, Wardell Milan, Donald Moffett, Alice O’Malley, Catherine Opie, John O’Reilly, PaJaMa, Joan Snyder, Edmund Teske, Jimmy Wright, and many more

February 14–July 20, 2025

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY (January 28, 2025) — The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College presents a field of bloom and hum, a landmark exhibition featuring works by more than 150 queer artists. Opening February 14 and on view through July 20, 2025, the exhibition fills two floors of the museum with work that spans the last 100 years and explores the power of art to assert queer identities and communities.

Numerous related public events offer multiple opportunities for people to engage with the art and exhibiting artists. Talks, tours, screenings, performances, workshops, and a two-day symposium emphasize the exhibition as a space for belonging.

“In a time of threat, a field of bloom and hum reveals an incredible breadth of artistic expression to forge new understandings of the resilience, creativity, and joy that underpins the assertion of queer identities and community formation over multiple decades,” said Dayton Director Ian Berry, who is organizing the exhibition in collaboration with artists and Skidmore College faculty members. “This exhibition creates a space where art becomes a catalyst for connection and conversation, allowing visitors to engage with the profound power and legacy of these artists' works.”

The Wachenheim Gallery groups works into intergenerational dialogues. One room, for example, brings together a newly commissioned wall painting by Edie Fake called A Prayer for a Place, which imagines a place for trans people in society, with Oliver Herring’s Queensize Bed with Coat, 1993-1994, a knit sculpture created as an homage to drag performance artist and playwright Ethyl Eichelberger, and photographs from Nan Goldin’s Ballad of Sexual Dependency, 1979-1986, an influential and intimate photographic diary of the life of the artist and her friends, which extends into other rooms.

Other first-floor combinations of artists include Nayland Blake with Catherine Opie; John O’Reilly with Paul M. Sepuya; and PaJaMa (Paul Cadmus, Jared French, and Margaret French) with Jimmy Wright and Alice O’Malley, along with work by Steven Arnold, Lyle Ashton Harris, Wardell Milan, and Edmund Teske. Another area of the first floor will feature an art and activism resource room for gatherings, workshops, dissemination, and study, with work on view by Act Up, Dyke Action Machine, General Idea, Robert Giard, Queer Ecology Hanky Project, and many others.

The second-floor Malloy Wing features a salon-style wall of work by more than 140 artists that spans the early twentieth century to today. Among the artists are Berenice Abbott, Mark Bradford, Martine Gutierrez, Peter Hujar, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Shelby Sharie Cohen, Mickalene Thomas, and many more, forming a tapestry of identity, memory, and community. The upstairs gallery will also feature monumental works by Camila Falquez, Donald Moffett, Joel Otterson, and Joan Snyder, as well as a combination of Nayland Blake’s Ruins of a Sensibility, which features turntables and the artist’s album collection, and seating and a rug by Liz Collins, forming a listening room and dance space open to all visitors.

Also upstairs is a purpose-built stage to serve as a venue for performances, discussions, class meetings, and community gatherings throughout the exhibition’s run.

Public Events
A wide range of public events aims to apply lessons learned from exhibiting artists about community building to strengthen a sense of belonging across identities and generations. A highlight will be a two-day Queer Archive Symposium on April 4 and 5.

Event highlights:

• Curator’s Tours: Thursday, February 27, Noon, and Thursday, April 24, Noon. Join Dayton Director Ian Berry or Izzy DeSantis, the Pohlad Curatorial Assistant, for a tour.
• Queerly Beloved: March 7, 7 pm. A vibrant queer comedy showcase with Calvin Cato, Sheria Mattis, Bailey Pope, and Beck Krefting. Experience an unforgettable night of laughter and liberation, where bold voices and brilliant punchlines collide with stunning queer art.
• Queer Ecology Hanky Project, March 19-20. V Adams and Mary Tremonte, co-founders of the Queer Ecology Hanky Project, will be in residence working with Assistant Professor of Art Ruben Castillo and Skidmore students, as well as giving two public events. The project showcases diverse print mediums and messages in response to Queer Ecology, an emerging area of inquiry that unites biology, environmental studies, and sexuality with a framework of queer theory. The public events are:

o    Dunkerley Dialogue: March 19, 6 pm. Adams and Tremonte in conversation with Castillo and Emily Le Sage, Assistant Professor of Biology.

o    Queer Ecology Hanky Project DJ Set: March 20, 8 pm. An innovative DJ performance blending queer culture and ecological themes.

• a field of bloom and hum film series: March 20, 27, April 3, 5, 10. Weaving together historical and contemporary film/video works by artists, this five-screening series pulls out threads and expands on the exhibition a field of bloom and hum, which focuses on queer lives and networks. The series is guest-curated by Jon Davies, a curator, writer, and scholar from Montreal. He is also the 2024–2025 General Idea Fellow at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
• Queer Archives Symposium: April 4, 5. The two-day symposium will bring together artists and the community for talks, panel discussions, film screenings, and a special a performance of live music and dance, What If We’re Beautiful. Brian Lawson and Aaron Loux will perform new choreography set to a five-part composition by Daniel Thomas Davis. For the first time, the dance will be presented to a live music performance by Hub New Music. This is the second performance in the Adirondack Trust New Works Series at the Tang Museum. A reception follows the performance. Full details of the Queer Archive Symposium will be announced in the coming weeks.
• Hell Is Real: A New Play Reading, April 22, 23, 6:30 pm. Skidmore Theater Department visiting artists Genevieve Simon and M Sloth Levine present a public reading of a new play, developed with Skidmore students as part of a class they are teaching this semester.

All events, and admission to the museum, are free and open to the public. For more information, call 518-580-8080 or visit https://tang.skidmore.edu.

About Skidmore College
Founded in 1903, Skidmore College is a highly selective, private liberal arts college of about 2,800 students located in the dynamic town of Saratoga Springs, New York. Consistently ranked as a top liberal arts college by U.S. News & World Report, The Princeton Review, Forbes, and more, Skidmore has also been recognized for its innovation, value, and sustainability efforts. Skidmore fosters academic and personal excellence—all driven by a belief that Creative Thought Matters. Its comprehensive array of opportunities encompasses more than 40 bachelor’s degree programs, including popular offerings in business, psychology, and the creative and performing arts; competitive NCAA Division III athletics; world-class facilities; and hands-on civic engagement and career development resources.

About the Tang Teaching Museum
The Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College is a pioneer of interdisciplinary exploration and learning. A cultural anchor of New York’s Capital Region, the Tang’s approach has become a model for college and university art museums across the country—with exhibition programs that bring together visual and performing arts with interdisciplinary ideas from history, economics, biology, dance, and physics, to name just a few. The Tang has one of the most rigorous faculty-engagement initiatives in the nation, and a robust publication and touring exhibition program that extends the museum’s reach far beyond its walls. The Tang Teaching Museum’s award-winning building, designed by architect Antoine Predock, serves as a visual metaphor for the convergence of art and ideas. The Museum is open to the public Tuesday–Sunday, noon–5 pm, with extended hours until 9 pm Thursday. https://tang.skidmore.edu.

Exhibition webpage link: https://tang.skidmore.edu/exhibitions/636-a-field-of-bloom-and-hum

Photo Caption: Joan Snyder, And Always Searching for Beauty, 2001, oil, acrylic, paper mache, herbs on linen, 78 x 102 inches, Tang Teaching Museum collection, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gifford Phillips in honor of their daughter, Marjorie Phillips Elliot '80, 2001.10