Space 242 announces its September exhibition, the world premiere of The Wedlock Project, Confronting Perceptions of Same-Sex Marriage Through Visual, Performance, & Public Art, with Part 1 of 3: Engagement.

Using the autobiographical experiences of artists TTBaum and Michael Grohall, The Wedlock Project is an interdisciplinary visual and performance art series in three parts: Engagement, Public Displays of Acceptance, and Matrimony. Part 1: Engagement begins in September with a multi-artist visual and performance art exhibition at SPACE 242. Part 2: Public Displays of Acceptance, a series of public art interventions, will take place monthly November 2009 through May 2010. Part 3: Matrimony, a multi-day performance event, is a live, public same-sex marriage ceremony.

The Wedlock Project confronts same-sex marriage from all sides of the issue: cultural, political, religious and personal. Wedlock challenges the definition of “marriage” in American culture, the “hetero-normalization” of the gay community, perspectives on “traditional” relationships, and the dispensation of civil rights in a culture that espouses separation of Church and State.

At the exhibition’s opening, Baum and Grohall will perform an original live piece called Romeos that directly addresses their engagement with a society that strives to keep them apart, their engagement with their own self-awareness, and, ultimately, their engagement with one another as a same-sex couple. According to them: Living in a hetero-centric world, intimacy between two men is confined to the realms of confrontation and competition—the worlds of sports and business. Somewhere in the search for money, power, and success, another longing exists; an alienated self, seeking to expose the desire for love. Engagement begins with struggle.