Caleb Cole, "Don't Let the Sun," archival pigment print, collage from found photographs, 19 x 13 in, $1,800

Artist Statement

Beyond the Here and Now (2020 - )

The collages in Beyond the Here and Now are made from collected vernacular photographs, primarily from the 1980s and 90s, brought together for chance encounters as a means of thinking about a lineage of queer culture while resisting a singular progressive genealogy. The search for these items is a kind of cruising, that desire entwined with the resulting work, and taking objects home to tend to them is an expression of extended witnessing and devotion. My work acknowledges the impossibility and undesirability of returning to the past, and instead experiences the act of looking backward as a way to imagine beyond the present to new queer futures.

Edition: 2/10

Created: 2021

Attribution: Courtesy Gallery Kayafas

Bio

Caleb Cole is a Midwest-born, Boston-based artist whose work addresses the opportunities and difficulties of queer belonging, as well as aims to be a link in the creation of that tradition, no matter how fragile or ephemeral or impossible its connections. They were an inaugural resident at Surf Point Residency and have received an Artadia Boston Finalist Award, Hearst 8x10 Biennial Award, 3 Magenta Flash Forward Foundation Fellowships, and 2 Photolucida Critical Mass Finalist Awards, among other distinctions. Their work is in a variety of permanent collections including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The Davis Museum, Newport Art Museum, and Leslie Lohman Museum of Art. They teach at Boston College and Clark University and are represented by Gallery Kayafas, Boston.