Ridykeulous Presents: Ridykes' Cavern of Fine Inverted Wines and Deviant Videos

Founded in 2005, Ridykeulous mounts exhibitions and events primarily concerned with queer and feminist art. This publication will be the first exhibition catalogue by Ridykeulous, joined by Sam Roeck, and will accompany the fall 2023 exhibition Ridykes' Cavern of Fine Inverted Wines and Deviant Videos at Nottingham Contemporary. With newly commissioned texts by curator Lia Gangitano and Alexandro Segade of the artist collective My Barbarian, the catalogue will be complemented by a conversation between Ridykeulous members Nicole Eisenman, A.L. Steiner and Sam Roeck, providing insights into the collective's thinking, politics, behind-the-scenes notations, and methods of exploration, as well as an introduction by Nottingham Contemporary's Chief Curator Nicole Yip.

Using humor to critique the art world and heteropatriarchal culture at-large, Ridykeulous often reinvents language to reflect their sensibilities and concerns—composing communiqués, screeds, and diatribes across various media. The exhibition features an intergenerational mix of 30 contemporary visual artists working across film, video installation, sculpture, and performance. Playfully proposing queer fabulosity as a critical intervention in the capitalist spectacle, the exhibition seeks to erode the secondary positioning of LGBTQ+ art and artists as “alternative.” Designed by the Zürich-based Studio Marie Lusa, the publication will evoke the textual feeling of a zine, with over 100 full-color and black-and-white image plates.

Paperback

ISBN: 9780262547475

Publisher: The MIT Press

120 pp., 10 x 12 in, 150 color illus.

Nicole Eisenman (b. 1965, France, lives and works in Brooklyn) works across painting, drawing, installation, and sculpture. She received the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship award in 2015. Additionally, she has been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship (1996), Carnegie Prize (2013), and the Suzanne Deal Booth/FLAG Art Foundation Prize (2018), and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2018.

Her work has been shown in numerous solo exhibitions, such as Nicole Eisenman: Untitled (show) at Hauser & Wirth, New York (2022); Heads, Kisses, Battles: Nicole Eisenman and the Moderns at Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld (2021), which travelled to Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau (2022), Foundation Vincent Van Gogh, Arles (2022) and Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Hague (2022); Nicole Eisenman: Giant Without a Body at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo (2021); and Nicole Eisenman: Sturm und Drang at The Contemporary Austin, Austin (2020). Her work has also been included in the Whitney Biennial in 1995, 2012, and 2019, and the 2019 Venice Biennale, as well as having been acquired by public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Tate, London.

Ryan McNamara (b. 1979, Phoenix, Arizona) is a Brooklyn-based artist who is known for blending different practices of dance, theatre, and history in his work. His works are often situation-specific and tend to be collaborative or participatory, creating a social discourse and commenting on participation within artistic production. McNamara has held performances and exhibitions at Elizabeth Dee Gallery, The Watermill Performance Center, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, Lehmann Maupin, The Whitney Museum, MoMA P.S.1, The Kitchen, and in various other locations throughout the world. His work is also in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art.