photo by Rachel Stern
Buzz Slutzky (they/them) is a non-binary/transgender and Jewish multidisciplinary artist, educator, writer, and performer based in Brooklyn, New York. Their work vacillates between autobiographical and research-based historical modes, and uses intimacy and humor to bring juiciness to narrative. Buzz’s practice often juxtaposes text and image through video, drawing, performance, pyrography (woodburning) and other mediums. Buzz’s video Clothes Feelings (2016), which was exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, uses loose drawings of clothing with voiceover anecdotes to explore their humorous experiences navigating gender presentation as a non-binary person.
Slutzky has exhibited, performed, and screened work at The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Cooper Union, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), The Leslie Lohman Museum, Boston Center for the Arts, La Mama, MIX, Frameline, among others. Mentions of Slutzky’s work have appeared in Artforum, Vice, ArtNews, Observer, Hyperallergic, and The New York Times. Buzz has also co/organized art exhibitions relating to queerness, humor, politics, and history, including the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History (2011), Hysterically Accurate: Comedic Critiques of History (2015), and Queering Space at Yale (2016). Slutzky earned their BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 2010, and their MFA from Parsons the New School in 2015, after which, they were a resident at the Vermont Studio Center (2015), the NARS Foundation (2017), and participated in the Triple Canopy Publication Intensive (2018).
Buzz was a 2021-2022 BricLAB video art resident and a 2022 MacDowell fellow. They currently teach video at The New School and School of Visual Arts (SVA).
Short Bio:
Buzz Slutzky (they/them) is a non-binary/transgender and Jewish multidisciplinary artist, educator, writer, filmmaker, and performer based in Brooklyn, New York. Their work uses intimacy and humor to bring juiciness into narrative. Buzz’s practice often juxtaposes text and image through film/video, drawing, performance, and pyrography (woodburning). Slutzky has exhibited work at BRIC, The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Cooper Union, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), The Leslie Lohman Museum, Boston Center for the Arts, La Mama, Dixon Place, the MIX Film Festival, Frameline, among others. They are a 2022 MacDowell Fellow, and a 2021-22 BRICLab resident. They currently teach filmmaking at The New School and School of Visual Arts (SVA).
Contact: buzzslutzky@gmail.com
Buzz Slutzky curriculum vitae
EDUCATION
2015 MFA Parsons The New School for Design, Fine Arts
MFA Thesis on Anne Frank and Justin Bieber
The New School University Merit Award, 2013-2014
2010 BA, Sarah Lawrence College
Visual Art, Art History, Social History
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2024
Spring 2024: Adjunct Faculty, Department of Photography and Video, School of Visual Arts (SVA), New York City. Courses: Video 1
Fall 2024: Rhode Island School of Design, Painting Department, Course: Workshop for Senior Thesis
2022-2024
Adjunct Faculty, School of Media Studies, The New School, New York City Courses taught: Cinematography and Lighting (Spring 2022), Aesthetics of Directing (Fall 2022 and Fall 2023), Film 1 (Fall 2023), Film 3: Advanced Pre-production / Screenwriting (Spring 2024).
Spring 2023
Part Time Faculty, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Film Animation Video Department, Course taught: Video 2 for Juniors.
2019-2022
Teaching Artist / Museum Educator, Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, New York City. Museum tours and discussions, Multi-session Workshops in public schools.
2018-2022
Adjunct Instructor, SUNY Purchase College, Purchase, NY. Course taught: Lens & Time (Foundations program: photography, video, HTML/CSS web coding, social practice, and web-based interventions).
Fall 2019
Adjunct MFA mentor, Lesley University, Cambridge, MA (low residency), Individual meetings on art practice with an MFA Fine Arts student.
Summer 2019
Adjunct Instructor, The New School, New York City. Course: Film, Art Change: Making Movies to Make a Difference, Pre-college video production intensive program, School of Media Studies.
2016-2019
Adjunct Instructor, College of Staten Island, City University of New York. Courses taught: Video 1 (Video Production), Video 2 (Video Post-Production).
2017
Adjunct Instructor, SUNY Westchester Community College, Valhalla, NY. Course taught: Digital Photography 1
2014
Teaching Assistant, Parsons The New School for Design, Fine Arts, New York City. Course assisted: Experiments in Video: Autobiography and Narrative
AWARDS/RESIDENCIES
2022 MacDowell Fellowship, Peterborough, New Hampshire
2021 BricLAB Video Art Residency, Brooklyn, NY
2017 NARS Foundation, Studio Residency, Brooklyn, NY
2015 Vermont Studio Center, residency with merit grant, Johnson, VT
2013-2014 The New School University Merit Award
2013 Asylum International Jewish Artist Retreat, organized by the Six Points Fellowship, Garrison, NY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021
Dissolution, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art
2020
Found in Translation online exhibition, Trans Vegas Arts Festival
2019
Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall,
Brooklyn Museum (Collaborator of LJ Roberts on The Queer Houses of Brooklyn and the Three Towns of Boswyck, Breukelen and Midwout in the 41st Year of the Stonewall Era)
Plays on Camp, Assembly Room NYC
Other Wise, Gallery MC
2018
Tag: Proposals on Queer Play and the Ways Forward, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA
Queer Voices, L.H. Horton Jr. Gallery at San Joaquin Delta College, California
Alternate Routes, Leslie Lohman Project Space
Cast of Characters (artist project by Liz Collins), The Bureau of General Services
Overflow, Special Special, New York
2017
Found: Queer Archaeology; Queer Abstraction, Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, New York City
NARS Spring Exhibition, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Punching Up, Richard and Dolly Maass Gallery, Purchase College
2016
Ditto, Mindscape Universe, Berlin, Germany
A Garden Sown! Los Ojos, Brooklyn, NY
Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community, Mills Gallery at the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA
Bring Your Own Body: Transgender Between Archives and Aesthetics, Grunwald Gallery of Art, Bloomington, Indiana
Bring Your Own Body: Transgender Between Archives and Aesthetics, Haverford College, PA
Bring Your Own Body: Transgender Between Archives and Aesthetics, 41 Cooper Gallery, Cooper Union, NYC
House of Orange, Kilroy Metal Ceiling, Brooklyn, NY
Dog and Baby Show, Video Video!, Chicago, IL
2015
Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Baltimore, MD
Bring Your Own Body: Transgender Between Archives and Aesthetics, Glass Curtain Gallery at Columbia College, Chicago, IL
Off Pink, Parsons MFA Thesis Exhibition, The Kitchen, NYC, curated by Tina Kukielski
New Work New York: MFA Biennial, St. Nick’s Alliance/ Arts @ Renaissance, Brooklyn
Mutlifarious Array Reading Series march 13, Pete’s Candy Store, Brooklyn
Hysterically Accurate: Comedic Critiques of History, 25 East Gallery, NYC
To Be Real: Queer Icons screening, MIX New York Queer Experimental Film Festival
2014
Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community, Leslie Lohman Museum, NYC
Lumpy Discourses, 25 East Gallery, Parsons, NYC
2013
Hobby Group, JoAnn's Fabrics, Allen Park, Michigan
Craftivism, Le Petit Versailles, NYC
2012
40 Under 40: Craft Futures, Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Collaboration with artist LJ Roberts), Washington, DC
Pop-Up Museum of Queer History, Leslie Lohman Museum, NYC
CREEPS III Collective Show, Ed. Varie Gallery, NYC
2011
LJ Roberts (collaborator), Grizzly Grizzly, Philadephlia, PA
Queer Me, The LGBT Center, NYC
The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History, Quorum Forum, Brooklyn
2010
Ripe, The Keyhole, Kansas City, Missouri
Ripe, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, Missouri
C.A.T.S. Callin’, Port D’Or, Brooklyn, NYC
LECTURES, PRESENTATIONS, PANELS, AND WORKSHOPS
2024
Hosted a gallery talk with Luciana Pinchiero on her solo exhibition Bad Posture, Praxis Gallery, New York
2023
Coffee and Conversation event for For Example exhibition, BRIC
Visit to Ariel Goldberg’s MFA Thesis class, Parsons / The New School
2022
We Are The Babysitters Club reading/illustration presentation, presented by Chicago Review Press
2020
Found in Translation panel, Trans Vegas Arts Festival
2019
Hysterically Accurate: Artists Using Comedy to Critique History Lecture, Chalkboard, Bureau of General Services— Queer Division, LGBT Center
Other Wise panel discussion, Gallery MC
2018
ICP/Bard Graduate Symposium Guest Speaker, The Dinner: An Open Conversation
Leslie Lohman Queer Artist Fellowship, Artist Talk
2017
"What is Feminism Now? Art and Activism" Symposium at Fashion Institute of Technology (panelist)
Trans Oral History Project, New York Public Library (interviewee)
Radical Encounter (podcast guest)
Panel discussion on trans aesthetics and childhood, Knockdown Center, Queens (organizer and moderator)
“Queering Performance: Humor, Identity, Documentary, and Drag” Lecture at Purchase College, with Loren Britton
Now//Now//Now//Now: Rethinking Feminism, Soho20 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (panelist)
2016
Visiting Artist (lecture and critique), Sarah Lawrence College. Course visited: Advanced Painting & Drawing, Prof. John O’Connor.
Trans Aesthetics in the Marriage Equality Utopia: A Micro-Manifesto, Panelist, CLAGS After Marriage Conference, CUNY John Jay College.
2015
Transeuphoria Now! Panelist, 41 Cooper Gallery, Cooper Union, co-sponsor Visual AIDS
Artist talk for Bring Your Own Body: Transgender Between Archives and Aesthetics.
2014
Artist Talk with Todd Oldham, Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community, Leslie Lohman Museum.
2013
Workshop Facilitator, “Choose Your Own Adventure: Making Art out of Queer History,” Pop Up Museum of Queer History Block Party.
2012
Jewish Art Salon, Artist Panel Moderator, Columbia / Barnard Kraft Center.
2011
“Queer That Museum Chat, An Unofficial Docent Tour of Brooklyn Museum’s Hide/Seek Exhibition,” The Pop Up Museum of Queer History, Brooklyn Museum.
SELECTED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE (non-teaching related)
2020
Video captioning, Yale’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
2015
Content Producer, Visual AIDS (Video documenting, interviewing, speaking)
Public Relations Committee, Off Pink, Parsons Thesis Exhibition at The Kitchen
2014
Visiting Artist Lecture Series Committee, Parsons The New School for Design
2013
Research Assistant to Jeanine Oleson, Parsons The New School for Design
2012-2013
Program Assistant, JCC Conversations and Laurie M. Tisch Gallery, Jewish Community Center (JCC) Manhattan
Studio Assistant, Zoe Leonard Studio
SELECTED SCREENINGS, FESTIVALS, AND READINGS
2023
BRIC Screening & Conversation: Ayanna Dozier, Ilana Harris-Babou, Buzz Slutzky
2022
BRICLab Video Art Residency Screening, BRIC House, Brooklyn NY
2017
Auto Robo Eco, host & reading of Pink and Blue, The Bureau (BGSQD), NYC
2016
A Garden Sown!, Screening of Clothes Feelings, Los Ojos, Brooklyn, NY
Experiments and Disorders, reading of T4T, Dixon Place, NYC
2015
To Be Real: Queer Icons screening of Religious Beliebs, MIX New York Queer Experimental Film Festival
Multifarious Array Reading Series, Pete’s Candy Store, Brooklyn
D.I.C.T.I.O.N.A.R.Y. Reading Series Closing Marathon, The Spectrum, Brooklyn
2013
Frameline San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, San Francisco, CA
The Bureau’s First Birthday, The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, NYC
Pride by Papercut, The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, NYC
2012
MIX NYC: The 25th New York Queer Experimental Film Festival, NYC
2011
MIX NYC: The 24th New York Queer Experimental Film Festival, 45 Bleecker, NYC
Local and Emerging Film, Radical Queer Semaine, Montreal, QC, Canada
SELECTED THEATER ACTING AND LIVE PERFORMANCE
2024
Performed as Horowitz in the workshop for In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot at Playwright’s Horizons. Written by Sarah Mantell, directed by Sivan Battat.
Tell: An evening of queer storytelling, The Bureau of General Services Queer Division, presented by Drae Campbell.
2020
Tell, an evening of queer storytelling, The Bureau of General Services Queer Division, presented by Drae Campbell.
Evening of online performance with Transformer project space, Washington DC.
2019
We All Sleep Alone, performance as Stoni Butchell, Assembly Room NYC. Organized by Ksenia Soboleva.
2018
The Adventures of Stoni Butchell and Chartruisa, a double solo performance with HH Hiaasen, Dixon Place, New York.
Drag performance as Klaus Nomi, Nightwood, Leslie Lohman Museum, New York.
Tell, an evening of queer storytelling, The Bureau of General Services Queer Division, presented by Drae Campbell.
Performance as Stoni Butchell at Liza Goes West, Dixon Place.
2014
Together Men Make Paradigms, a play by Maxe Crandall, Dixon Place, NYC.
2013
New Museum IDEAS CITY Festival, LGBT Center street performance, NYC.
Squirts: New Voices in Queer Performance, La Mama Experimental Theater Club, NYC .
FILM ACTING & APPEARANCES
2024
Discount Sestina, directed by Buzz Slutzky
2023
One Shorter Than the Other, directed by Buzz Slutzky (documentary & voiceover)
2019
My Surgery Story, directed by Buzz Slutzky
2016
Clothes Feelings, directed by Buzz Slutzky
2015
Religious Beliebs, directed by Buzz Slutzky
2012
Background actor on The Outs, directed by Adam Goldman
Villanelle for Daters, directed by Buzz Slutzky
2010
Vampire Teacher in Kyle Casey Chu’s thesis film
Chatroulette: Serial Terror, directed by Buzz Slutzky
2009
Hey Girl Hey, directed by Buzz Slutzky
PUBLISHED WORK
“On Anne Frank’s Diary as a Social Text,” V.1 Magazine, Rhode Island School of Design, 2018.
Cover images, illustrations for "The Husbands" by Diana Cage for Fence Magazine, Summer 2017.
Catalog essay on painter Adam Novak for Fragmented Gaze, curated by Loren Britton. Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery, Los Angeles, July 2016.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hyperallergic, June 12, 2019. “Queer Artists in Their Own Words: Buzz Slutzky Wants to Make Queer History Cool,” Zachary Small.
ArtNews (Online and Fall 2018 issue, page 112). Maximiliano Durón, September 20, 2018. “Mission Accomplished?: As Mainstream Art Museums Rush to Diversify, What is the Role of Culturally Specific Museums Working for a Cause?”
Art in America, May 1, 2018. Brian Droitcour, “Subcultural Treasures.”
Slate (online). Charles A. McDonald, November 27, 2017. “‘Whatever You Do Is Perfect’: Remembering the Queer Mentorship of Flawless Sabrina.”
The New York Times, August 23, 2017. Holland Cotter, "Art Once Shunned, Now Celebrated in 'Found: Queer Archaeology; Queer Abstraction'."
John Chaich and Todd Oldham, “Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community.” Ammo Books: New York, 2017.
Philadelphia Gay News, November 3, 2016. Ray Simon, "Local College Explores Trans History, Artistry."
VICE, The Creators Project, October 27, 2016. Antwaun Sargent, “A Look Inside the First Queer Show at Yale School of Art.”
Two Coats of Paint, October 21, 2016. Sharon Butler, "Examining Queer at Yale University. "
Barker & Jane, Cultural Studies: Theory & Practice, 5th edition, p. 106.
Observer, July 30, 2016. Alanna Martinez, "Martha Wilson to Debut Trump Impersonation, and 5 Other Things to Do."
The Boston Globe, May 5, 2016. "The Week Ahead: Art, Music, Theater, and More."
The Chicago Tribune, January 27, 2016. Lori Waxman, "She, He, They, Ze: Transgender art and artists at Columbia College."
Hyperallergic, Nov 11, 2015. Carolina Drake, “An Archival and Artistic Exploration of Transgender Identity.”
POZ Magazine Online, Nov 6, 2015. “Remembering Trans Artist and HIV Activist Chloe Dzubilo.”
Art in America, Oct 29, 2015. “The Lookout: ‘Bring Your Own Body.’”
Paper Magazine, Oct 19, 2015. Layne Weiss, “A Look at ‘Bring Your Own Body,’ A New Exhibit Exploring Trans Histories and Identities.”
New York Times, Feb 20, 2013. Holland Cotter, “Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community.”
Busy Beaver Button Co. Blog, Feb 11, 2013. Abby, “Buttons Celebrate Queer Culture and History.”
ArtNews Blog, January 30, 2013. Robin Cembalest,“Avant-Garde Quilt Explosion!”
Mr. X Stitch, January 8, 2013. Jamie Chalmers, “Showtime! Queer Threads—Leslie Lohman Museum, New York.”
Art F City, October 3, 2013. Paddy Johnson and Hannah Garner, “A Queer Education: a Pop-Up Museum comes to Brooklyn.”
The Huffington Post, February 7, 2013. John-Stuart Faquet, "What the Future Might Be: Dan Fishback’s SQUIRTS."
Artforum.com, January 30, 2013. Katie Anania, "Critics Pick: '40 Under 40: Craft Futures.'"
Next Magazine, Dec 28, 2012. Brian Sloan, “Under One Roof: Spotlight (Squirts).”
Time Out NY, Critics Pick: Squirts. Dec 19, 2012.
Creeps 3rd Annual Magazine, October 31, 2012.
Bodies of Work Magazine, Morty Diamond, February 24, 2012. “Interview With Artist Buzz Slutzky.”
Next Magazine, Brian Sloan, January 19, 2011, nextmagazine.com “SCENE + HEARD: A Queer History Museum “Pops Up” In Bushwick.”
The Pitch, Chris Packham, February 25, 2010, pitch.com. Mikal Shapiro's Ripe moves to Leedy-Voulkos.
The Pitch, Chris Packham, February 11, 2010, pitch.com. Ripe finds sketchy sex in the Keyhole.
FELLOWSHIPS
2018 Triple Canopy Publication Intensive
2017 Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, Artist Fellowship
2016 Creative Capital Summer Intensive, Professional Development Program
2009 Youth Organizing Fellowship, Young People For, People for the American Way
2008 Grace Paley Organizing Fellowship, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
2011 Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art, Washington, DC
(Collaborator of LJ Roberts on The Queer Houses of Brooklyn and the Three Towns of Boswyck, Breukelen and Midwout in the 41st Year of the Stonewall Era)
CURATORIAL PROJECTS
2021
Spring/Break Art Show, solo exhibition for Tyler Gunther, A Greedy Peasant’s Royal Wedding Workshop.
2016
Queering Space, Green Gallery, Yale University, co-curated with Loren Britton, Res, Erica Wessman, Shikeith Nieree, Christie Denizio, Erik Freer, Johnathan Robert Payne, and Asad Pervaiz.
2015
Hysterically Accurate: Comedic Critiques of History, 25 East Gallery, Parsons Fine Arts.
2011
The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History—Soho, Leslie Lohman Museum, New York.
The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History, Quorum Forum, Brooklyn, New York.