Pau S. Pescador: Working

TRULAND & EXPERIMENTAL GALLERIES, LOWER LEVEL

Pau S. Pescador: Working features two new artworks by Pau S. Pescador, a trans nonbinary artist based in Los Angeles, CA. The artwork Working explores the experience of transgender individuals working for the federal government through a single-channel video incorporating animation, found and created footage, and voiceover audio. The photography installation Pigment and Ink examines portraiture and its depictions of identity in cultural institutions. Throughout the exhibition, Pescador explores the ways that social categories like gender, sexuality, and race inform and shape understandings of public service and national identity.

Working focuses on government service as a site for both the creation of law and the shaping of societal attitudes more broadly. From the segregation of the federal civil service to the McCarthy period, the Lavender Scare, and the enforcement of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, policing within and exclusion from federal employment has marked certain groups of people as being outside the borders of full American identity. At a moment when the rights of trans employees are in a state of rapid flux, and federal workers generally have been targeted and vilified, the project captures the daily experiences and wide-ranging viewpoints of trans people who work or worked for the government.

The installation Pigment and Ink combines hundreds of photographs Pescador took of portraits in museums in Washington, DC. Printed as 4 x 6 inch snapshots, the images evoke the history of photographic souvenirs and nod to the role that these cultural institutions play as sites for tourism, in service of national identity. Pescador cropped the portraits to emphasize their color and form and downplay the identity of the subject. Categories like gender, age, race, and social status become less evident, reducing each image to ambiguous forms. By emphasizing the potential for multiple interpretations and alternative viewing strategies, Pigment and Ink suggests that artistic representation will inevitably evade attempts to consolidate its meaning into oversimplified narratives.

Pau S. Pescador
Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

Pau S. Pescador is a contemporary trans fem nonbinary artist who works in film, photography, and performance and lives and works in Los Angeles, California. She graduated with an MFA from University of California, Irvine and a BA from University of Southern California. Select exhibitions and screenings include: UV Estudios (Buenos Aires, AR); Biquini Wax (Mexico City, MX); Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; LADRÓNgalería (Mexico City, MX); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Tyler Park Presents (Los Angeles, CA); and in Coastal/Borders, Getty Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA at Angels Gate Cultural Center among other venues. Select performances include: Salon Silicon (Mexico City, MX); Machine Projects (Los Angeles, CA); Los Angeles Contemporary Archives; Performa 2015: Colony, New York, New York; UC Berkeley: Durham Studio Theater; PAM, Los Angeles; Hammer Museum, with KCHUNG TV, Los Angeles; REDCAT, Los Angeles; Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman University, Los Angeles; and ForYourArt, Los Angeles.

Related Programs
Art After Hours
Saturday / February 21 / 5pm-8pm

Artist Talk: Pau S. Pescador
Wednesday / February 25 / 6:30pm-7:30pm