Art	Gray Anatomy by Catherine Young

Del LaGrace Volcano’s "Luscious Lester !DKE6" (Chicago, 2004).

Deviant Bodies 2.0, the current show at CEPA Gallery, is a groundbreaking exhibit of photography, sculpture, video and installation pieces about and by transgendered individuals. International in its scope, Deviant Bodies 2.0 is a followup to the very successful Deviant Bodies exhibition CEPA did in 2004, but CEPA director Lawrence Brose is careful to note it is not simply “a sequel.” CEPA aimed to explore the margins of gender by way of transgender, gender variant and genderqueer experiences. According to co-curator JR Martin-Alexander, they discovered “the margins were filled and the status quo was nearly empty.”

The first-floor gallery contains the exhibit Transfigurations, a series of traditional formalist portraiture by Santa Cruz-based artist Jana Marcus. The diversity of content in the interviews that appear alongside the portraits offers an engaging contrast to the black-and-white photographs of people posing for and confronting the camera. Marcus began her project by interviewing female-to-male (FTM) transgendered subjects, asking a series of questions including “What kind of man did you decide to become?” In a world that offers a very limited definition of what it is to be masculine, in terms of both physicality and behavior, this question alone opens the discourse of gender identification and how it might be imagined and actualized.

Marcus expanded her project to interview male-to-female (MTF) transgendered subjects as well, and these interviews and photographs are being exhibited for the first time. The 23 portraits create a narrative entrée into the complex and diverse discourses of current transgender issues. For some subjects, surgery is the final achievement on a journey to self-completion, while others reject the idea of locating their gender in a specific physical trait. The discourse of inside vs. outside and physical vs. emotional “completeness” comes up repeatedly. A raft of issues materialize, including male privilege, living stealth, class boundaries and how societal messages about the perfect female form influence those transitioning to become women.

The intersection of race, class and gender is fraught terrain and many portraits offer revealing glimpses into how they continually tug at individuals. A picture of a slightly chubby young man stares at the camera and the quote alongside it reads, “growing up as the daughter of Chinese immigrants in the U.S., I had a deeply internalized need to please.” Then there is Dex, a 42-year-old black FTM, who grew up as a black woman with anger towards black men. Now Dex is a black man and, as a San Francisco police officer, deals with social stereotypes against black men on a daily basis. While Transfigurations has more of a social documentary flavor than the rest of the work in Deviant Bodies 2.0, it does a remarkable job of relaying stories that go deeper than a quick headline or talk-show sound bite.

One of Francesca Galliani's hand-tinted photographs.

The Passageway Gallery on the second floor contains works by several artists, including Tobaron Waxman, whose artwork conflates imagery of orthodox Judaism and queer masculinities. Considering the foundational significance of separation in the Torah, including the dictum “each according to its kind,” Waxman’s work both encapsulates and generates the tensions in existing in a liminal zone, rather than on one or another side of a clear boundary. Large-scale photographs from the Tisha b’ Av series show a shirtless, tattooed young man with another man in traditional dress. The man in the traditional dress is receiving a ceremonial haircut, tenderly being groomed at the hands of the other. In one of the photos, the broad scars of a bilateral mastectomy (part of the physical transition from female to male) are clearly evident.

Waxman’s second room of photographs are large-scale color works with a naked figure praying with five other traditionally clothed figures who appear to be men. (Waxman’s statement says a mixed gender cast was used for the shoot.) The blurred images suggest the swaying movement of intense prayer. They are depicting a prayer performed three times daily by the devout. Described by the artist as “a meditation on the transgender experience of a man with a womb,” are we meant to focus on the lack of penis bobbing out from the tuft of public hair? Or, is the viewer implicated in this search for “proof” of maleness?

Although easy to miss, the Noman’s Land series of 11-by-14-inch, black-and-white self-portraits by Linn Underhill in the Market Arcade windows should be sought out. Inspired by photos of friends and lovers taken by the photographer George Platt Lynes during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, Underhill says in her artist’s statement that she wanted “to recreate the look of male privilege and glamour of that period.” At first this seems like a peculiar project. Doesn’t male privilege seem like something to dismantle rather than conjure? However, the second part of the statement adds a crucial dimension to the project. Underhill describes it as a “unique opportunity to validate my aging female body in an exhilarating act of masquerade.” In our supremely ageist society, this makes perfect sense. Cigars, a walking cane, a pocket kerchief, a pinstripe suit, an argyle sweater: Underhill perfectly channels the markers of a suave masculinity. The sly confidence of a previous era’s dapper men emanates from these quiet but potent works.

The Underground Gallery (located in the Market Arcade basement) is packed with work. Not that the space is crowded. Rather, there is a diversity of work that demands considerable time to experience properly. The first is an exuberant installation by Michela Ledwidge. An interactive piece, the viewer is invited to press keys on a keyboard to create a unique mash-up of different video and sound elements. My favorite video footage was of a tranny in a leather halter and a bright purple tutu skateboarding in a graffiti-saturated cement cityscape. Footage of Ledwidge’s 2001 wedding in London is also very pleasurable to watch. It is simultaneously a private home video and a public political assertion.

The sculptures and monoprints of Emmett Ramstad are beautiful, corporal and delicate. With embroidered handmade paper serving as a metaphor for surgical skin, and petite pillows cradling post-surgery detritus, the works explore phalloplasty, the surgical creation of a penis, viewing the body as a contested landscape of scars and the transgender community itself as a body currently constructing itself.

Jaishri Abichandani's installation at CEPA documents Muslim drag queens in New York City.

There are four video stalls containing several works by film and video artists from across the county and Canada. Operation Invert by Tara Mateik manages to address warfare, the history of the development of Botox, medical bias and the complex process of being approved for a double mastectomy with a very humorous tone through comical use of archival footage and ironic music. Gender Play, one of three works in a loop by Philipe Lonestar, shows Super-8 footage of friends frolicking in a playground while they discuss their gender and sexual identities. Their answers in some ways sound typical of any young people, ambiguous and unsure of what they want in a partner. Other times the answers—like “I’m a queer-sexual. I’ll do it with any queer—dykes or fags. Just not someone straight”—are declarative and draw lines while also keeping the playing field wide open. A video installation by Jaishri Abichandani about Muslim drag queens in New York City appears in CEPA’s Main Street window space. This is a revealing counterpoint to the limited images of Muslims in mainstream media.

Deviant Bodies 2.0 offers an excellent and unusual opportunity to contemplate the lives of people who are usually ignored, derided or sensationalized. It is also a rare chance to view cutting-edge work by artists from all over the globe. It would be a mistake to think this is a show only for those with a direct link to the transgendered community. As one of Marcus’ subjects put it, “My goal has been to live an authentic life, to be my authentic self. I enjoy the subtle but profound sense of being in my own skin.”

The show runs through December 17.