TJ Burk
TJ Burk is a Philadelphia-based art historian. Her work appears in places such as WSQ and Journal of Curatorial Studies. She received her doctorate from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2015. Her dissertation, "Let the Record Show: Mapping Queer Art and Activism in New York City, 1986-1995," was recently awarded the Paul Monette-Roger Horwitz Dissertation Prize by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies. TJ is currently a lecturer at Rutgers University, where she teaches a course on pornography and representation. Her latest project examines the iconography of hands in queer art, which is supported in part by the Leather Archives and Museum and the Leeway Foundation.
Awarded Grants
2015
Art and Change Grant (ACG)
Related grantees
Overview
TJ Burk will create an online art exhibit and related event that explores the fist as a symbol of sex positivity and hands as a significant motif in queer art. TJ will draw upon her personal experience as a queer leather dyke and her professional expertise as an art historian to curate and contextualize an exhibit that brings together existing but hard to find imagery. Her goal is to shine light on the sexual practice of fisting- a topic that is often sensationalized- and visually explore its importance to the history of queer sexual representation, in order to challenge social taboos regarding radical sex and LGBTQI individuals.
