After 10 years of taking testosterone, NYC-based artist Lorenzo Triburgo stopped cold for the duration of their residency and exhibition at Baxter Street Camera Club of NY.
During the process, Triburgo collaborated with partner Sarah Van Dyck to produce a series of glittered environmental performance-portraits that reference art history and contort the ever-complicated gaze. Van Dyck photographed Triburgo in the historically queer haven of Queens, New York City's The People's Beach at Jacob Riis Park, Triburgo's body grounded in a space they describe as “sanctuary and resistance.” Triburgo poses with equal nods to Michaelangelo’s David and Botticelli's Venus, confronting viewers’ potential blindspots to the gray areas of gender identity.
Titling the series Shimmer Shimmer, Triburgo and Van Dyck pace these portraits with photos of glitter representing constellations – a celestial breath of calm, hope, and magic. For Triburgo, this collaboration responds to reductive assumptions of queer and trans identity in popular culture, painting gender as something that is as fluid and enigmatic as the stars above.
Triburgo and I spoke to illuminate, clarify, and perhaps open the door to more questions.
