Rubbish and Dreams: the Genderqueer Performance Art of Stephen Varble, is an exhibition focusing on a performance artist who became iconic in 1970s New York for his disruptive interventions into galleries, public spaces, and financial institutions. Varble would engage in unauthorized and impromptu performance wearing elaborate drag costumes made from street trash, food waste, and stolen objects. His work was decidedly anti-institutional and he disrupted the business of art in the 1970s. For these reasons, he was soon written out of history, and no substantive piece of writing on his practice has been published for 40 years. This exhibition draws on a number of private archives in telling Varble’s story for the first time. RUBBISH AND DREAMS: The Genderqueer Performance Art of Stephen Varble is on view through January 6, 2019 at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, 26 Wooster Street, New York.
