The Queer Houses of Brooklyn in the Three Towns of Breukelen, Boswyck, and Midwout during the 41st Year of the Stonewall Era (based on a 2010 drawing by Daniel Rosza Lang/Levitsky with 24 illustrations by Buzz Slutzky on printed pin-back buttons)

The Queer Houses of Brooklyn in the Three Towns of Breukelen, Boswyck, and Midwout during the 41^st Year of the Stonewall Era (based on a 2010 drawing by Daniel Rosza Lang/Levitsky with 24 illustrations by Buzz Slutzky on printed pin-back buttons)

L.J. Roberts, The Queer Houses of Brooklyn in the Three Towns of Breukelen, Boswyck, and Midwout during the 41st Year of the Stonewall Era (based on a 2010 drawing by Daniel Rosza Lang/Levitsky with 24 illustrations by Buzz Slutzky on printed pin-back buttons), 2011, poly-fill, acrylic, rayon, Lurex, wool, polyester, cotton, lamé, sequins, and blended fabrics with printed pin-back buttons, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Elaine Reuben, 2012.43, © 2011, L.J. Roberts

L. J. Roberts knitted and sewed this map of queer community building in Brooklyn, New York. The map is based on a drawing by Rosza Daniel Lang/Levitsky made in honor of Brooklyn’s 2010 Queer House Field Day. Roberts’s large-scale work is a vibrantly colored collage of knitted rectangular poufs, reminiscent of both handmade patchwork quilts and the brickwork of Brooklyn rowhouses. Hot pink triangles (a symbol of LGBTQ self-identity) mark the homes with open doors. Queer Houses continues the work of radical community organizing that changes the home, not the inhabitants.

This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World, 2022

Title

Artist

L.J. Roberts

Assistants

Daniel Rosza Lang/Levitsky

Buzz Slutzky

L.J. Roberts

Date

2011

Location

Dimensions

138 x 114 x 108 in. (350.5 x 289.6 x 274.3 cm)

Copyright

Credit Line

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Gift of Elaine Reuben

Mediums Description

poly-fill, acrylic, rayon, Lurex, wool, polyester, cotton, lamé, sequins, and blended fabrics with printed pin-back buttons

Classifications

Decorative Arts

Fiber

Object Number

2012.43

Palette

Linked Open Data

Linked Open Data URI

Videos

Date

June 8, 2012

Information
Transcript

In anticipation of the exhibition 40 under 40: Craft Futures, on view at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum from July 20, 2012 -- February 3, 2013, the museum asked the 40 artists featured to share personal videos of themselves with our audience. Here's what L.J. Roberts submitted—enjoy! Social Media Video, 2012 Digital video, color, sound, 2:07 Videography and Direction by Jennie Livingston Additional Videography and Editing by J Dellecave Courtesy of the artist

L.J. ROBERTS: My name is L.J. Roberts, and I made the piece the “Queer House of Brooklyn in the Three Towns of Brooklyn, Bushwick, and Midwout During the 41st Year of the Stonewall Era.” We’re sitting at Glitter House right now, which is a queer collective house in Brooklyn, and I am an artist that makes knitted and quilted and embroidered installations.

I moved to New York in 2009 and found this really incredible, creative, artistic, performance, film-making community of queer people living in Brooklyn. And so the map is quite large and you can approach it. It’s knitted mostly on children’s toy knitting machines including a Barbie knitting machine from 1974, which is kind of the crux of the machinery I use, and also Cool Quarter, which is a pink sparkly machine.

BUZZ SLUTZSKY: So, for this piece I did the illustrations on the buttons of all the queer houses, and I basically asked people in the queer houses, you know, what were the images they wanted so see on the icon of their house. I either did that or I just literally drew what their house name was.

DANIEL ROSZA LANG: So I made the map that L.J. based this piece off of, for the program for the first queer house field day, which is a community-building that the collective has done for the past few years as a way of bringing folks living in the set of queer collective houses that have been formed in Brooklyn for the last number of years. So, I made the map to make visible the geography of the queer collective houses of Brooklyn right now and to connect this moment to queer history and the underlying history of Brooklyn.

L.J: I’m really excited to be part of the Brooklyn scene right now and that feels like we’re all working together to kind of continue on this queer tradition of making art in New York.

The Queer Houses of Brooklyn in the Three Towns of Breukelen, Boswyck, and Midwout during the 41st Year of the Stonewall Era (based on a 2010 drawing by Daniel Rosza Lang/​Levitsky with 24 illustrations by Buzz Slutzky on printed pin-back buttons)

40 Under 40: Craft Futures

More Artworks from the Collection

The Queer Houses of Brooklyn in the Three Towns of Breukelen, Boswyck, and Midwout during the 41^st Year of the Stonewall Era (based on a 2010 drawing by Daniel Rosza Lang/Levitsky with 24 illustrations by Buzz Slutzky on printed pin-back buttons)