Ed Woodham’s Radical Public Art

The artist and educator on queer creativity in the margins, dogs across art history, and a collective tarot-horoscope for Hyperallergic readers.

As Pride month comes to an end, Ed Woodham is here to remind us that queer and trans artists deserve to be celebrated every day of the year. The artist and founder of Art in Odd Places has spent decades advocating for public art as just what it sounds like — a public good, not a private commodity.

Editor-in-Chief Hakim Bishara spoke with Woodham about the costs of art-world success and why he has never sought it out. “What I value about Pride is not the branding,” he says. “It’s the resistance. It’s the refusal to be erased.” Read on for the full interview, a candid and galvanizing testimonial to carry us into the dog days of summer.

Speaking of which: Dog people, this one’s for you. The Dog’s Gaze is a new book tracing canine companions across art history, including some truly precious paintings of scruffy floofs and dignified pups (their scientific names) by the likes of Renoir and Carpaccio. Alisyn Amant brings us into the pages of this ode to our four-legged friends and the way their presence in art can completely shift our experience of it. Be still, my dog-loving heart.

—Lakshmi Rivera Amin, associate editor

Just when you’re about to give up on this power-hungry, money-obsessed, star-fucking art world and its market-driven media, people like Ed Woodham come along and restore your faith in what art can do for society.

The decades-long practice of the 69-year-old Atlanta-born artist, curator, and educator is thoroughly rooted in community. He’s most known for leading Art in Odd Places, a public art group he originally co-founded as part of Atlanta’s cultural programming for the 1996 Summer Olympics. In what follows, Woodham and I discuss his youth in Atlanta, his unflinching art activism, and his life as a badass queer elder. | Hakim Bishara

Open Call: The 7th VH AWARD for Media Artists Engaged with the Context of Asia

Supporting media artists with production grants, global exhibitions, and an expanded online residency with Ars Electronica.

Amid global turmoil and rising temperatures, I’ve seen creative friends hitting periods of stagnancy. What will help us return to a flow state? | AX Mina

A compassionate new book explores how canine companions across Western art history break down the emotional boundaries between species. | Alisyn Amant

“The privacy and silence reflect the intimacy and meditative spareness of my art.”

Jozanne Rabyor on “A Natural History of William Kentridge’s Studio”

Let There Be Neon in Tribeca made a name for itself as an essential resource for artists, from Keith Haring to Laurie Anderson. | Aaron Short