Everyday Joys in Twenty-First Century Queer American Painting

Taken together, the chapters in this book outline a theory and a practice of painting ecstatic ordinarinesses in contemporary, diverse American queer life. To do so, it offers the first sustained study of five individually renowned twenty-first-century queer painters-Gio Black Peter, Doron Langberg, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Salman Toor, and João Gabriel-who have achieved substantial recognition from international museums, galleries, and critics working with short-form reviews but not yet from academics producing large-scale studies. This study argues for a broad understanding of what constitutes the queer American art of our time and for a broad sense of who can help to fashion American culture and history, including art by African American, Southeast Asian, Muslim and Jewish American, South American, and gender nonconforming queer artists. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, contemporary art, gender studies, and queer studies.

David Deutsch is Professor and Chair in the Department of English at The University of Alabama.

Introduction: Encountering Ecstatic Ordinarinesses in Queer Art: An Introduction to Everyday Ecstasies 1. Gio Black Peter's Sublime Subway Maps: Reading the Routes of a Queer New York City, and Beyond 2. At Rest in Love and in Love with Rest: Everyday Intimacies in the Paintings of Doron Langberg 3. Salman Toor's Enrapturing Contacts: Communicating Joy and Sorrow through the Technologies of Everyday Interactions 4. Ecstatic Queer Nature: Flowers, Seeds, and Everyday Joys in the Painting of Jonathan Lyndon Chase Conclusion: João Gabriel's Ordinary Historical Ecstasy