Carlos Motta: Your Monsters, Our Idols / Sharing Circles: Carol Newhouse and the WomanShare Collective

For fall, the Wex presents two groundbreaking exhibitions by Carlos Motta and Carol Newhouse, each of which engages histories—and futures—of queer and feminist resistance.

Carlos Motta: Your Monsters, Our Idols
On view September 16–December 30, 2022

This thematic solo exhibition—the largest presentation of Motta’s work in the US to date—celebrates the Colombian-born, New York–based artist’s commitment to radical difference and the debut of his Wex-commissioned project, The Columbus Assembly.

Acclaimed for work that addresses critical LGBTQIA+ issues of both past and present, Motta (he/him) describes himself as “an historian of untold narratives and archivist of repressed histories.” Your Monsters, Our Idols, curated by Wex Associate Curator of Exhibitions Lucy I. Zimmerman, brings together a selection of Motta’s photographs, films, sculptures, drawings, and installations from the late 1990s through today, which reflect two major areas of exploration in his practice: postcolonial subjectivity and democratic participation.

These works reveal the struggles of queer people under the constraints of oppressive social and political regimes, but also use participation as a device, employing self-representation and self-determination as strategies to produce counternarratives. The range of this liberated expression is expanded through collaborations with other artists, including Julio Salgado, Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau, Tiamat Legion Medusa, and SPIT! (Sodomites, Perverts, Inverts Together!), a collective including Motta, John Arthur Peetz, and Carlos Maria Romero.

The Columbus Assembly, Motta’s first multichannel sound installation, was supported by a Wex Artist Residency Award. The project is based on conversations with artists, activists, and scholars who considered the stakes of changing the name of Columbus, Ohio—the largest city in the world named after Christopher Columbus. The work asks how reimagining such symbolic acts of recognition might contribute to larger efforts to decolonize institutions, attain equity, and achieve restorative justice.

Two free volumes designed by Composite Co. will be published in conjunction with Your Monsters, Our Idols: A booklet accompanying the residency work that features the edited roundtable conversations along with a poem by Indigo Gonzales Miller, and an exhibition gallery guide that will feature new essays by Zimmerman and scholar and filmmaker Susan Stryker.

Sharing Circles: Carol Newhouse and the WomanShare Collective
On view September 16–December 30, 2022

In her first museum exhibition, photographer Carol Newhouse (she/her) chronicles the joys and hardships of the Women’s Lands, a movement launched in the 1970s to reclaim rural America as a safe space for queer women.

Cocurated by Ohio-based artist Carmen Winant, Sharing Circles surveys the world-changing impact of 1970s feminism through Newhouse’s photographic work, which chronicles the creation of WomanShare—a queer feminist, land-based community in rural Oregon founded in 1974 by Newhouse, her then lover Billie Miracle, and her best friend Dian Wagner. Part of a cluster of lesbian collectives located along the Interstate 5 corridor, WomanShare grew to become a central hub of West Coast feminism, attracting scores of city-dwelling visitors to its annual gatherings and workshops. More than just a retreat, it advertised collective ownership, group decision-making, and liberated sexuality that paired shared responsibilities with egalitarian pleasures. A core participant, Newhouse documented the community with an insider’s sensitivity, offering a vivid portrait of life and love on the land.

Reflecting WomanShare’s collective endeavor, Sharing Circles gathers over 150 of Newhouse’s photographs alongside the creative work of her peers. These figures include Billie Miracle, who has lived on the land continuously since 1974, and current residents Bianca Fox Del Mar Ballara and Lycan El Lobo Coss, who are working with Newhouse and Miracle to transfer WomanShare into the stewardship of queer BIPOC women and Two-Spirit people, renaming it NativeWomanshare.

Sharing Circles is jointly curated by Winant, Associate Professor in the Department of Art at Ohio State, and Wex Associate Curator of Exhibitions Daniel Marcus, along with Curatorial Research Assistant Raechel Root and Graduate Curatorial Intern Arielle Irizarry. 

An accompanying free gallery publication designed by The Work We Do will include interviews with Newhouse and Miracle and a conversation between Ballara, Coss, and Ohio-based artists and activists Nico Fuentes and Jonas Wooten.

Fall exhibitions preview: September 15, 4–7pm
Featuring exhibitions tours with Motta and Newhouse

FotoFocus Biennial Columbus Neighborhood Spotlight Day: October 20, 1–5pm
Free curator-led tours of the exhibitions.

Virtual conversation: Motta and Ana María Reyes: October 26, 6–7:30pm, 
Streams for free at wexarts.org; moderated by Lucy I. Zimmerman

Reassembly: November 5, 12–5pm
A free community-led event activating the exhibitions. More details soon!