Joe Sinness: Portraits
Following his dazzling exhibition "The Flowers," which debuted last summer at the Minneapolis Institute of Art's Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program and explored unpacking shame around queer male sexuality, Joe Sinness returns with portraits of ... wait for it ... softball players. Delicately drawn with colored pencils, these works depict the players of the Twin Cities Goodtime Softball League, a gay league founded in 1979 after a group of queers challenged the Minneapolis police to a softball game and totally kicked their butts. By capturing these LGBTQAI folks in their element, perhaps with a baseball field or a chain-link fence or just something nature-y in the background, Sinness depicts another aspect of queer life, and points to the ways that team sports can help people feel a part of a non-biological version of family. Case in point: One of the teams is Unicorns. LOL. (11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.; 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Thu.-Fri.; 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat.-Sun. Ends Feb. 27. Soo Visual Arts Center, 2909 Bryant Av. S., Mpls. soovac.org)
ALICIA ELER
