Queer Trash Symposium: Derek Baron

Suzanne Fiol 2018 Curatorial Fellows Queer Trash present Queer Trash: the Symposium, featuring Justin Allen, Derek Baron, Lorene Bouboushian, Ivoire Foreman, Sarah Hennies, Crystal Penalosa, and Claire Rousay. An auspicious meeting of some very bright and very queer minds, the evening showcases the myriad ways that queers make sound, make sound queer, or skim around terms that may attempt to contain queer life.

Derek Baron (b. Illinois, 1989) is an artist working mostly with sound and music. Their solo work assembles pre-recorded sound in an attempt at documentary realism. Their recent written and audio work has tried to engage with questions of whiteness and the audiovisual complex. In addition to their solo practice, Derek's collaborative projects include Cop Tears (a once-a-year amateur chamber group), Permanent Six Flags (an epistolary duo and residency program), and Causings (a “home & garden” bricolage family band). Derek has released albums on such imprints as Penultimate Press, Recital Program, Power Moves Library, Pentiments, and Silt Editions. With Emily Martin, Derek co-operates the Reading Group record label from their apartment in New York. In April 2018, Reading Group released a 3-disc LP edition of the 1989 tape journals of artist David Wojnarowicz. Derek is currently working towards a PhD in Historical Musicology at New York University, where they are researching racial politics of concrete music and the role of sound in experimental documentary film. Upcoming recorded works include a solo LP documenting a canoe trip with their dad, a double-CD album of Richard Wagner fan fiction by Permanent Six Flags, a first-time duo collaboration with field recordist Christian Mirande for Erstwhile’s AEU imprint, and an LP of Cop Tears playing dodgy arrangements of the complete piano music of Theodor Adorno.