Reception: 8/6/2022 5-8 pm
Conversation with Willie Little and Julian Gaines at 5:30 PM
Oregon Center for Contemporary Art
8371 North Interstate Avenue
Portland, OR, 97217
United States
503-286-9449
The multimedia, interactive installation will consist of a series of vignettes, a series of corners from Willie’s childhood shotgun shack home, where he grew up off Pactolus Highway, near Little Washington, NC.
The installation will invite the viewer to experience the world of the imagination of a poor, Black gay boy from rural North Carolina. It will include theatre walls, found objects, photographs, and a sound environment lifted from the pages of his recent memoir and art book, In the Sticks.
The tableaus will seek to transport the viewer to a time and place from the artist’s past, through sight, sound, objects, and memorabilia. It will reveal some of his dreams, conflicts, and the inner turmoil he experienced as an imaginative, sensitive, gay Black boy from Pactolus, North Carolina in the late 60s, and early 70s where he desperately dreamed of one day getting out of the sticks.
The exhibition will expose the often-untold stories of a Rural, Black, gay child’s perspective; to educate, inspire and entertain audiences, but also reveal the universality of the inner turmoil many gay children may have endured or still may live through.
IN MY OWN LITTLE CORNER is generously supported by Oregon Community Foundation’s Creative Heights initiative. Oregon Contemporary is also supported by The Ford Family, Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Robert & Mercedes Eichholz Foundation, VIA Art Fund and Wagner Foundation, the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund, the James F. & Marion L. Miller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Oregon Arts Commission, and the Regional Arts & Culture Council. Other businesses and individuals provide additional support.
In My Own Little Corner – Oregon Contemporary
Willie gained notoriety from his exhibit Juke Joint, now in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian. This new exhibit brings us a more personal look and will rival Juke Joint with its excellent execution. Willie will also be debuting a new piece as part of the on loan program with Oregon Contemporary. He will also loan I Am Your Momma. both pieces are shown below.
Oregon Contemporary Loan Program
Detail
