Nayland Blake is an American artist whose focus is on interracial attraction, Homoeroticism, and intolerance of the prejudice toward them. Their mixed-media work has been variously described as disturbing, provocative, elusive, tormented, sinister, hysterical, brutal, and tender.[Valdez, Sarah: "Nayland Blake at Matthew Marks"; Art in America, 2004 September][Rush, Michael: "Nayland Blake at Mattche Marks"; Art in America, 2000 September][Davies, Lillian: ; Artforum, July 20, 2006.]
Education and life
Nayland Blake attended
Bard College in Annandale-On-Hudson, for its B.F.A. program from 1978 to 1982
and then moved to California. They attended the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, for its M.F.A. program, from 1982 to 1984.
Since at least 2017, Blake has opted to use “they/them” pronouns, a decision that they explained was made partly in solidarity with those whose gender expression does not fit a binary, as well as a nod to their own hybrid racial and sexual identity.[ Subcultural Treasures, Art in America, Brian Droitcour, May 1, 2018.][ "Overcoming Daily Life with Nayland Blake’s Daily Drawings", Hyperallergic, Louis Bury, December 14, 2017]
Work
Nayland Blake began displaying their work in 1985. Among their most famous pieces are a
log cabin made of
gingerbread squares fitted to a steel frame, entitled
Feeder 2 (1998). When it went on display at the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, visitors furtively nibbled off bits and pieces of the cabin's interior walls, while the smell of the gingerbread filled the gallery.
Another well-known work is
Starting Over (2000), a video of the artist dancing with
Tap dance on their shoes in a bunny suit made to weigh the same as his partner at the time. The suit was so heavy that Blake could hardly move as they took
Choreography directions from offstage.
Gorge (1998) is a video of the artist sitting shirtless being hand-fed an enormous amount of food for an hour by a shirtless black man from behind.[
]
In 2009, a live version of Gorge was staged in which audience members fed Blake.
Their work often incorporates themes of Sadomasochism.[Johnson, Paddy: "The Guys We Would Fuck: An Interview with Nayland Blake"; Art Fag City, June 24, 2008.]
Blake has had solo museum exhibition at the Tang Museum and was included in the 1991 Whitney Biennial and that museum's infamous exhibition in 1994.[Hood, Carra Leah: "Nayland Blake's 'Invisible Man'"; Yale Journal of Criticism. vol. 8, no. 2 (1995), pp. 131–147.]
Maura Riley curated a retrospective of 30 years of Blake's art, "Behavior," which was presented in late 2008–early 2009 at Location One in New York City.[
]
In October 2017 Nayland Blake participated in the performance series Crossing Object (inside Gnomen)
In 2018 Nayland curated Tag: Proposals on Queer Play And The Ways Forward
Their work is in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Walker Art Center, and the Des Moines Art Center, among others.[Hawley, John C. (ed.), LGBTQ America Today: An Encyclopedia, Greenwood Press, 2008] They are represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery, and currently lives and works in New York City.
In 2022, Blake participated in the 2022 Whitney Biennial titled "Quiet as It's Kept" curated by Adrienne Edwards and David Breslin.
Selected solo exhibitions
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FREE!LOVE!TOOL!BOX!, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
[
]
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> "Nayland Blake: FREE!LOVE!TOOL!BOX!", Yerba Buena.[
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Nayland Blake: FREE!LOVE!TOOL!BOX!]
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Nayland Blake: Behavior, Location One, New York, curated by Maura Reilly
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Nayland Blake, Some Kind of Love: Performance Video 1989-2002, Center for Art and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore. Traveled to The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY.
[ "Opener 3: Nayland Blake: Some Kind of Love — Performance Video, 1989-2002", Past Exhibitions | 2003, Tang.]
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Hare Attitudes, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston
[ "Nayland Blake: Hare Attitudes" (January 12–February 25, 1996), CAMH.]
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The Schreber Suite, MATRIX Gallery, University of California, Berkeley Art Museum
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Inscription, XS Gallery, Western Nevada Community College, Carson City, NV.
Select Publications
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Nayland Blake, Behavior. New York : Location One [2009], with essays by Maura Reilly.
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Nayland Blake, Surfaced. London : MOCA, [2008?]
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Nayland Blake, Also also also rises the sun. Calgary Alta., Canada : No Press, 2008
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Nayland Blake, Nayland Blake: some kind of love: performance video 1989-2002 / Ian Berry ; with an essay by David Deitcher. Saratoga Springs, N.Y. : The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, 2003.
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In a different light : visual culture, sexual identity, queer practice / edited by Nayland Blake, Lawrence Rinder, Amy Scholder. San Francisco : City Lights Books, 1995.
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Nayland Blake, Nayland Blake: Hare Attitudes. Houston : Contemporary Arts Museum, 1996.
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Nayland Blake, The Library of Babel. Buffalo, N.Y. : Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, 1991.
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Nayland Blake, Brains: The journal of egghead sexuality. San Francisco : B. Works, 1990.
Public collections
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Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
[ Nayland Blake, "Negative Bunny" in America is Hard to See, permanent collection inaugural exhibition of New Whitney.]
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Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Ana.
[ Nayland Blake , Orange County Museum of Art.]
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Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
[ Nayland Blake, MoCA, Los Angeles.]
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Museum of Modern Art, New York.
[ Nayland Blake, MoMA.]
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Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco.
[The museum holds, besides other works by Blake, the painting Made with pride by a Queen. Blake combined here a drawing by the German artist Fedor Flinzer with a phrase he wrote and laid out in type. Flinzer’s illustration was originally published on page 186 in the second volume of the Deutsche Jugend from 1873.]
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Di rosa, Napa.
Writings
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Artist's blog
[http://www.naylandblake.net Artist's blog]
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Blake, N., Rinder, L., and Scholder, A. (1995) In a different light. San Francisco, CA: City Light Books.
External links
