Forging Ties

The Metal Museum embraces all communities with its current exhibition, “We Are Here.”

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“Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.” — Bell Hooks

From steel beams in towering skyscrapers, to tiny silver circuit boards in electronics, to gold rings wrapped around fingers, metal is all around us. We admire it for its strength to withstand time, to power, and to empower. It’s solid, hard, even cold. It seems immovable and permanent, yet under extreme heat, it’s malleable. As metalsmith matt lambert (they/them) says, “It’s such a fluid thing.”

“We can melt it down,” lambert says. (They style their name in all-lowercased letters.) “We can evolve it; we can rework it. There’s an interesting poetry in that. … I really enjoy the metaphor that’s involved in the material of metal that we can, as makers, choose to alter it completely, reconfigure it, or break it down and rebuild it. And that is a reflection of our identities as we evolve as people.”

Despite metal’s innate ability to adhere to a gamut of visions, metalsmithing as a field has historically excluded marginalized communities and identities, leaving many under- or unrepresented and consequently neglecting the richness and nuance that diversity can confer. As recently as 2021, the Metal Museum formalized its commitment to rectifying this gap through internal operations and outward-facing programs and exhibitions — one such effort being its latest juried exhibition, “We Are Here,” highlighting LGBTQIA+ contemporary voices in metal.

The exhibition, on display from June 6th to September 10th, includes 40 works of art from 26 queer-identifying metal artists from across the country. From sculpture to jewelry to furniture, the pieces range in their forms and how they incorporate metal. “It feels like it’s a celebration of LGBTQIA+ people,” says one of the artists, Funlola Coker, “but it also feels poignant right now, especially given what’s happening not just in Tennessee but around America and the world, and how queer people are being oppressed. It feels really important to keep showing work like this and talking about it and supporting artists who talk about these issues, because it’s a more nuanced expression of who we are.”

In August of last year, the Metal Museum put out a call to metal artists in the LGBTQIA+ community for the exhibition, for which matt lambert, Al Murray, and Lawrence Matthews served as jurors. Based in North Carolina, Murray operates a small metalworking studio and advocates for Southern queer artists, and Matthews, former program and gallery director at TONE, works in music, photography, painting, and filmmaking, exploring and elevating the Black experience in Memphis. Meanwhile, lambert is working toward their Ph.D. in philosophy in artistic practice in visual, applied, and spatial arts at Konstfack, an arts-focused university in Sweden.

“The joy of having three very diverse jurors — and one not coming from a jewelry or metals background — is that it opened up a really productive conversation,” lambert says. “We were not afraid to have critical conversations — like, ‘Well, why do you want this? Why do you not want this?’ — to find that common ground. And I think that’s a reflection of what we’re asking for this exhibition: Where and how do we find common ground with something that’s been so politicized (which it shouldn’t be)?”

In finding that common ground, the three jurors knew they wanted to be mindful of accessibility, recognizing that marginalized communities already face uneven access to schooling specialized in the craft and even to the materials themselves, as the cost of metal rises. “Everyone has learned to work with metal in very different ways,” lambert says, “and [we aimed to be] really conscious of that to not create something that is elite.

“I’m not interested in blue-chip gallery ideas,” they continue, “like, ‘Oh, this person is a super known name, so we have to include them,’ or, ‘Oh, you know, this work is going to sell, so we should definitely have it. I’m least interested in making exhibitions in a capitalistic framework. … And it’s very helpful that there’s a collective cause [with co-jurors Murray and Matthews]. Then the weight isn’t just on you and it opens healthy debate. Especially having someone who [is not a metal artist by trade] because they weren’t aware of, like, ‘What is good metal work?’ So they’re judging it purely on their own set of criteria, which I can’t speak to.”

Each juror’s unique perspective, lambert adds, allowed them to curate an exhibit that more fully spoke to the intersectional spectrum of what it means to be LGBTQIA+. Not all of the works speak directly to identity politics. “Rather than the typical ‘the work looks like it’s queer,’ I think this show also really highlights that there are people from these backgrounds in all areas,” lambert says. “We’re making space for a lot of types of identity that include queerness, but it’s not just that. [The artists in the exhibit] place themselves in those spectrums, but for some it was an option to just be themselves, and maybe they don’t want to stress that part of them. Just applying [for the exhibition] already implies that they see themselves as part of this community.”

As they reflect on their own work, lambert explains, “I am not my nonbinary transness; it is a part of who I am. My experience living in this body can be reflected in the work, or a historian can look at my work and analyze it [through a queer lens], but it is not the totality of who I am.”

Similarly, Funlola Coker, an artist selected for the exhibition and a recipient of one of the three Juror’s Choice Awards, says that her queerness wasn’t at the forefront of her mind when making her pieces featured in the show. “It’s not like I don’t have those things on my mind when I’m making my work,” she says, “but it’s not necessarily what I want to make my work about in this moment.”

At this moment, Coker, who lived in Memphis for over a decade before moving away for grad school in 2020, is interested in her relationship with her hair. The award-winning piece, Shed | Collect, features a tangle of coiled metal accompanied by a sleek steel hairbrush with bristles topped with sea-foam green enamel bulbs. “It’s sort of following my observations, highlighting the beauty of those mundane moments in my life,” she says, “thinking about how I collect my hair, the aesthetics of brushing that I use, sort of making them more surreal and just highlighting the beauty of those moments.”

“There are people who expect Black artists to talk about their oppression, or people expect queer artists to talk about their oppression,” she adds. “And then it’s nice to just celebrate who we are, as opposed to focusing solely on just that one dimensionality. So I tried to create some kind of balance for myself and my work. It’s not like I’m specifically talking about the history of Black hair. That’s so broad, but it is there because I can’t escape it.”

Another fundamental element layered into her work, Coker adds, is metal’s connection to her ancestry. Originally from Lagos, Nigeria, she speaks of her Yoruba heritage, how she uses the same materials and techniques as her ancestors when working in metal. Even her fascination with hair connects to her Nigerian heritage, since as a kid she heard stories warning her not to throw her hair away because it could be used for witchcraft. “I don’t really feel comfortable just leaving my hair around,” she says, “so I collect it. I’m sort of cleaning up after myself and making sure that I’m not leaving my hair for anybody else to see or to collect and use as witchcraft.”

And with metal, Funlola Coker says that in her work, “There’s an aspect of asserting permanence. In some of my pieces, I’ve actually burned my hair into the surface of the metal, and so there’s a permanent mark that’s never fading. And that’s like asserting my identity into the world.”

Even with this residual superstitious instinct to hide her fallen hair, Coker pushes forward with her hair-centric series, which she has titled “To Grow You Is To Know You.” “It’s so interesting that I keep choosing to be an artist,” she says on a similar note. “Just putting your work on display is always a strange feeling for me. Like, I just want to make it and then put it somewhere and nobody asks me any questions. But that’s not realistic, and people are interested and want to hear what you have to say. It teaches you a lot about yourself, having to talk about your work.”

Still, the work itself is what drives her. “When I first touched metal and started working with it, I felt really passionate about it, and I wanted to keep doing it,” Coker says. “It’s one of the first materials that I worked with that I felt like I really connected with because it’s challenging. Just fabricating things out of metal is never easy. There’s a lot of problem-solving involved, so there’s a technical aspect that I enjoy but also almost a spiritual connection with the material.”

Even so, for a few years, that passion dwindled. After graduating from Memphis College of Art with a BFA in sculpture, Coker says, “I kind of lost faith. I wasn’t really connected to the community and it didn’t feel like a space where people were making efforts to talk about being a Black metalsmith. I would go to a conference and be the only one, or be one of three, or one of two. And if nobody’s supporting you in your efforts, to make it more inclusive, you feel like you’re not really wanted in that space.”

In that time, Coker turned to making jewelry out of polymer clay, before shifting into metal jewelry. “But that didn’t feel satisfying enough for me,” she says, “so I decided to go back to school [at the State University of New York in New Paltz]. I got to the point where I was like, ‘If I’m going to see any change, I can’t wait. I need to be a part of it and help.’ I think that’s the moment where I was like, ‘Okay, I think I can do this.’ There are always ups and downs, but since I’ve made that decision, I’ve met a lot more people who make me feel like the diversity and inclusiveness can actually happen.”

And with metal, Coker says that in her work, “There’s an aspect of asserting permanence. In some of my pieces, I’ve actually burned my hair into the surface of the metal, and so there’s a permanent mark that’s never fading. And that’s like asserting my identity into the world.”

And her identity, she wants viewers of her work to know, is more than her queerness, more than her history, more than her heritage. The same holds true with her art, though each aspect of her identity can provide a lens through which to consider her work, yet none of these aspects can be separated from another entirely. “My queer experience that I connect to — not just my sexuality or who I’m dating or my gender expression,” she says, “is also layered into my connection to my interest in my heritage, which is layered into my queerness.”

Both lambert and Coker hope that visitors will recognize each artist’s expression of their identity. “It’s nice to see that people are more interested in highlighting the LGBTQIA+ community, especially in such a nuanced way,” Coker says. “Not just being one dimensional or tokenizing the work.”

“I hope that people don’t take it as a one-off because it’s Pride [Month] when we’re going to open the show,” lambert adds. So the questions become: How will these ideas carry on after the show? Will it inspire other LGBTQIA+ artists to participate in the metal arts? Will visitors see a part of themselves reflected in the work? Will they leave with a new perspective or awareness? Will they like or dislike the work?

“Ambivalence,” lambert says, “is a thing I think to avoid. If you actually have the energy to so greatly dislike something, to put hate behind it, that also says something about the person saying that, and it’s touching on issues that they haven’t tackled yet or they don’t want to. It’s also raising questions and things for them to think about. That’s the power of the visual arts. It raises those questions and gives people some tools or some grounding to think about when they leave.”

But the visual arts can only go so far, lambert acknowledges, pointing to the need for systemic change within institutions like museums. “These conversations are highly politicized right now,” they say. “Institutions need to be ahead of these waves and need to be talking to communities, so that if the institutions are already enacting these things, when these conversations come up, there are already systems in place.”

For now, lambert says, “I hope the show inspires some people who are in this [LGBTQIA+] community to say that we are here. At the end of the day, we’re also just people who are doing things like everybody else. And so it doesn’t have to be politicized, but we just have lives and we’re humans.”

“We Are Here: LGBTQIA+ Voices in the Contemporary Metals Community” is on display at the Metal Museum from June 6th to September 10th.