Our August Resident, James Hosking, is excited to present an artist talk and discussion focusing on the process of reinventing an LGBTQ+ archive in his collage series The Personals. In dialogue with Jen Dentel from Chicago’s Gerber/Hart Library and Archives, James will discuss how he interprets Gerber/Hart’s collections and other archival sources, and how LGBTQ+ print media of the 1960s and 1970s shaped queer identity and intimacy. Jen will be bringing a small collection of materials from Gerber/Hart for a special pop-up exhibition.

Artist Bio: James Hosking is a Chicago-based visual artist whose work explores underseen communities and archives, particularly of LGBTQ+ people, and principally themes of identity and intimacy through photo, film, and collage. His work has screened internationally and appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and many other publications. He is a 2024 MacDowell Fellow in visual arts.

Developed over several years, his Beautiful By Night documentary photo series and film focuses on three older drag performers in San Francisco. The project was featured in numerous national and international publications, including Mother Jones and The Washington Post, and in screenings and exhibitions at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (SF) and the Tenderloin Museum (SF). It was also the focus of a 2022 solo show at the University of Michigan.

He was a 2022–2023 HATCH resident at the Chicago Artists Coalition, where he presented pieces from a new archival collage series, The Personals, made from LGBTQ+ newspapers and magazines, found photos, and textures. Thematically, these works are inspired by personal ads from the 1960s and ’70s, some of which are reproduced in the compositions. He received a 2023 Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Support grant and a 2023 DCASE Individual Artist Program grant from the city of Chicago to support this series. Pieces have been recently exhibited at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art and Gerber/Hart Library and Archives. He developed The Personals during his 2024 MacDowell Fellowship in visual arts and will continue work on it during his Latitude residency.

James Hosking is currently the Art Director of the Chicago Reader.

Gerber/Hart: Gerber/Hart is a LGBTQ+ library and archives located in the Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago. Founded in 1981, Gerber/Hart is one of the largest repositories of LGBTQ+ content in the world. Gerber/Hart focuses on collecting, preserving, and making accessible the LGBTQ history and culture of Chicago and the Midwest. Learn more at gerberhart.org or by following @gerberhart onInstagram and Facebook. And for a deep dive into some of the amazing collections at Gerber/Hart, listen in to their 2022 podcast Unboxing Queer History!

Jen Bio: Jen Dentel (she/her) is the Community Outreach & Strategic Partnerships manager at Gerber/Hart Library & Archives where she has volunteered since 2014. In this role Jen manages Gerber/Hart’s community programming, social media, and communications. Jen received her BA in History from the University of Chicago and her MSLIS from UIUC. Jen’s independent research on Chicago pulp author and activist Valerie Taylor was published in Queer Between the Covers from University of London Press. Jen is a co-creator of Gerber/Hart’s podcast Unboxing Queer History. She has co-curated several exhibits at Gerber/Hart, including exhibits on pre-Stonewall activism, the history of drag, and lesbians and feminism in the 1970s and 80s.

RSVP here:https://www.eventbrite.com/e/artist-talk-with-james-hosking-with-jen-dentel-tickets-962106485397?aff=oddtdtcreator

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