Queer Heresies
Kevin Talmer Whiteneir Jr. is an interdisciplinary artist and art historian whose work discusses the relationships between gender and queer experiences as they relate to race, the effects of (neo)colonialism, and its parallels with magic, religion, and witchcraft. Whiteneir holds a Master’s Degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Modern and Contemporary Art History, Theory, and Criticism and a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
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As a performance artist, Whiteneir builds altars and creates large scale worship spaces that draw upon myths and rituals of witchcraft and magic to illustrate their connection to queer identities and experiences. These rituals comment upon the consequences of colonialism that continue to impact contemporary communities, and the act of manifesting desire and intention through choreographed ceremonies. His creative writing practice utilizes the mythology of witchcraft to create fictions set within a contemporary setting which propose reflection, introspection, and methods of addressing anxieties of the present-day.
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Whiteneir threads this into his work, combating censorship and marginalization in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. He is experienced in collections and archival management, institutional practices in diversity, inclusion, and equity, and varied genres of contemporary art history. Whiteneir founded Heresies Magazine to provide space for queer, Black, Brown, Indigenous, and disaporic people.