In 2017, Justin Bieber's Anne Frank House was remounted for the exhibition "Found: Queer Archaeology; Queer Abstraction" at the Leslie Lohman Museum in New York City, curated by Avram Finkelstein. The installation consists of a wallpaper recreated from a Belgian one dating to the 1920s, "Anne Frank's Bed" (a 20th century folding cot approximating the original), a Justin Bieber t-shirt with a 6-pointed gold "Jood" star, and drawings recreating the ones Anne Frank pasted onto her walls, with Justin Bieber added into the mix. Other objects include "Anne Frank's scarf" which was actually crocheted by my grandmother, "Anne Frank's lamp" which belonged to my late friend Spencer Barnett, some wooden furniture, and two texts: The Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt, and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein. It felt important to situate Anne Frank amongst well renowned women writers also of German Jewish descent. Perhaps it works within Justin Bieber's logic that these would be among Anne Frank's books, were she alive today. JBAFH is a satire taking seriously Justin Bieber's statement that "Hopefully she [Anne Frank] would've been a Belieber." 

Installation image included in Holland Cotter's New York Times review, "Art Once Shunned, Now Celebrated in 'Found: Queer Archaeology;  Queer Abstraction'."

Baby's First Baby, 2016, pyrography on pine, 46.75 x 3.5 x 1.5 in.

Body Pics, 2016, pyrography on fir, 96.25 x 3.5 x 1.5 in.

I Like To Go Camping, 2016, pyrography on fir, 96.25 x 3.5 x 1.5 in.

HAHA, 2016, pyrography on fir, 96.25 x 3.5 x 1.5 in.

Flowers Solve Everything, 2016, pyrography on fir, 96.25 x 3.5 x 1.5 in.

Fire At The Upstairs Lounge (after the Pulse shooting), 2016, pyrography on fir, 96.25 x 3.5 x 1.5 in.

The Price of Youth, 2016, pyrography on fir, 96.25 x 3.5 x 1.5 in.

Holly Woodlawn, 2016, pyrography on fir, 96.25 x 3.5 x 1.5 in.

I burn images from popular and queer/transgender cultures, as well as my own life, into pine and fir, so as to mark architectural material with personal and cultural affect. Both visually and conceptually, the pyrographs are like tattoos: they display externally something deeply personal, making the private public.

96" x 48" x 3"

Stud Finder uses pyrography (wood burning) to burn personal narratives onto architectural space. Stud walls are found underneath drywall, making up the skeleton of residential spaces. They are built by construction workers, typically cisgender (non-transgender) men, who are taught not to share their innermost feelings. But here, the stud wall’s images and texts display a public diary: secrets of queer desire, pop iconography, and trans angst. Stud Finder also references tattoos, images with private meanings, which individuals place on the outsides of bodies. As a transgender artist, Slutzky uses this mixture of construction and confession to layer gendered territories.

Plaster, Pillowcase, Zipper, Thread

15"x15"

Double Incision, 2014
Metal, paper towel, thread, felt, studs
top: 9 3/4" x 6 1/4"
bottom: 16 1/2" x 7 1/2" x 3/16"

These two representations of female-to-male chest surgery use the processes of crafting and welding to represent the coexistence of masculinity and femininity in one body. Repeating the same image by way of both sewing and welding, Double Incision evokes a set of seemingly opposite referents: domestic handicraft and industrial labor. This approach questions the idea of biologically determined gender, suggesting instead that genders are actually performed acts, much like the art making process itself.

Body Party (series), 2013

Post-surgical bodies experience their ghost parts as real, since the body is still biologically operating based on its own ingrained self-image. After my FTM top surgery, I felt itches in places that no longer existed. I felt my brain slowly reorient to the new outer limits of my body.

Body Party is a series that repurposes failed clothing detritus for imagined body parts. Ghost boob is made from a shoulderpad; its sewn line is a de-boob-ing surgery cut, its ribbon decorating it like a medical present to myself. Wiggle Pants claims my imagined transgender phallus as one that is necessarily rooted in the imaginary self within roleplay, a practice that can feel necessary when one’s self image and “real” body do not link up. Poppers pictures a flaccid buttplug, a dick in a dress, or a wilted flower.

Ghost Boobs, 2013
shoulderpad, ribbon, thread
5"x11"

Wiggle Pants, 2013
discarded sweater fragment (textile by Alexa Newman) and found costume tail
53" x 15"

Poppers, 2013
T-shirt sleeve and dress strap
5"x10"

Leggings (Packing Heat), 2013
leggings, sequin fringe, packing peanuts, thread
38"x15 1/4