Wherever (picture by Beth Schindler)
Satisfaction flags on the rodeo. Dykes and dive bars. Oil and water.
For queers in Texas, there’s one thing magical – sacred, even – in marrying issues that the straight world deems incompatible.
Multimedia visible artist/space-maker extraordinaire Beth Schindler takes pleasure in merging these supposed opposites, paying tribute to the dirtbag homosexual tradition that emerges in each shady corners and shiny areas. Additionally a heavy-lifting organizer of significant group occasions like Austin Dyke March and Lesbian Marriage ceremony, Schindler debuts her first solo pictures present, “Like Oil & Water, We Look Good Collectively in a Parking Lot,” at Prizer Arts & Letters on Feb. 3.
“I’m from Texas – I really like being in shitty dive bars, honky tonks, and scary fuel stations,” explains native Austinite Schindler. “These are the locations the place I really feel tremendous related and that talk to me in so some ways, however I’m 100% not secure there. As quickly as a couple of or two of us come collectively, we stick out fairly nicely.
“So, it’s actually essential to me to create these sorts of areas the place we get to be ourselves and never edit or censor ourselves – to simply loosen up and have a very good time.”
Captured on digital cameras and the artist’s trusty Yashica point-and-shoot, Schindler’s upcoming exhibit paperwork LGBTQ+ existence in areas explicitly not designed for them. Automobile tradition, from ostentatious trucker hubcaps to melancholic fuel stations, serves as a significant fixation, filtering the roadside romanticism of Ed Ruscha by means of a decidedly queer lens.
These seemingly mundane settings act as a backdrop for radical pleasure and resistance. For Schindler, the title of the exhibit speaks to the fantastic thing about taking on house in an oftentimes hostile world: “It’s that factor that occurs when oil and water get collectively in a car parking zone particularly – it turns into this prism of magnificence, and it’s natural, and it’s magical. It actually resonated for me, particularly contemplating how determined we’re for house.”
Extra essential to the artist than the place she takes images is who she inhabits these areas with. Half historic documentation, half love letter to her group, Schindler sees pictures as a method of paying tribute to family members. One shot reveals longtime associate/frequent collaborator Lex Vaughn defiantly buying and selling faces with a lenticular lion’s head. One other reveals Danielle Norris (aka DJ Belief the Wizard) smoldering poolside. With a number of taken on the plethora of sapphic areas organized by the artist, Schindler’s assortment gives a short, lovely look right into a tight-knit group.
“I feel [my] buddies are actually gorgeous and should be on the market, large and blown up and preserved for prosperity eternally,” says Schindler, who based lesbian analog pictures collective Homo Picture Membership alongside Gretchen Phillips and Deb Norris. “I’m an enormous archivist – it’s an enormous a part of my course of and the way I keep related to my group and to our tales.
“Creating stuff that ideally and hopefully will someday be in these archives and showcase what this scene is absolutely essential to me, and I really feel like this is part of that.”
Like Oil and Water, We Look Good Collectively in a Parking Lot: Opening reception: Sat., Feb. 3, 6-9pm. Prizer Arts and Letters, 2023 E. Cesar Chavez. prizerartsandletters.org.