Design Dysphoria Celebrates the Queer Creative Imagination at Gotham’s Chelsea Gallery
The LGBTQIA-focussed exhibition brings together striking work from designers and artists envisioning a defiant and joyful expression of shared identity.
Summary
-
- Queer-led design exhibition Design Dysphoria has partnered with Gotham to install its second annual show at its new Chelsea Gallery.
- On view now until August 1, the exhibition titled “Give Them the Fantasy” is curated by Liz Collins, Grace Whiteside of Sticky Glass, and Studio S II’s Erica Sellers and Jeremy Silberberg.
For its second annual show, Queer-led design exhibition Design Dysphoria has installed “Give Them the Fantasy” at Gotham‘s Chelsea gallery. Rooted in celebrating LGBTQIA+ identity, the exhibition falls during Pride month, further spotlighting the creative camaraderie and shared resilience of queer creatives and designers.
“While the queer community is intimately intertwined with the environments it constructs and inhabits, there continues to be a need and opportunity to establish new places that prioritize queer voices and camaraderie,” the collective said in a statement. The need for such dedicated spaces is increasingly relevant in the face of today’s heightened anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric; however, the collective remains resilient, envisioning their shared “fantasy” as a defiant, joyful, and beautiful place.
Among 24 artists across video, furniture, glass fixtures, lighting, and more, the show is curated by fellow designers Liz Collins, Grace Whiteside of Sticky Glass, and Erica Sellers and Jeremy Silberberg of Studio S II. On view now, Collin’s expressive textile art is pouring from a circular portal on a wall, while Whitesides’ truly “Sticky” glass objects are oozing as they hang from the ceiling. Throughout the gallery, amorphous glass vessels and an iceberg-like coffee table by Studio S II boast a slimy, alien-esque appeal.
Elsewhere, visitors will find blown glass objects by Deborah Czeresko, upholstered wall works by Francheska Alcántara, a sculptural and corporreal floor lamp by Jeremy Martin, “performative” sculptures by Savannah Knoop, and many more unique design objects. While appearing like bold individuals in their own right, the curation of objects also share a spirit of surrealism, inbetween-ness, and sensuality characteristic of contemporary queer aesthetics.
Gotham Creative VP Rachel Berks shared “With the opening of our new Chelsea location, which has a first-of-its-kind art gallery dispensary hybrid, we’re thrilled to foster an environment where the Design Dysphoria curators and other artists can create an authentically queer space within the city’s vibrant design community.”
Design Dysphoria’s “Give Them the Fantasy” exhibit will be on view at Gotham’s Chelsea Gallery (146 10th Ave, New York, NY 10011) until August 1, 2025.
