Through a varied, interdisciplinary and often collaborative body of work comprising mixed media, film, dance and performance, Patrick Staff considers ideas of discipline, dissent, labor and the queer body, frequently drawing on the historical narration of counter-culture, radical activity and alternative forms of community building. In one of his most ambitious and large-scale projects to date, The Foundation, Staff explores the complexities of cultural artifacts and collective identities, via an examination of ownership, appropriation, responsibility and desire. Focused on the Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles—home to the archive of the erotic artist and gay icon and a community of people that care for it—Staff foregrounds his own identity and his personal dialogue with the different communities of the foundation to consider how ideas of intergenerational inheritance and exchange are complicated by gender identity and presentation.

Staff’s exhibitions, screenings and performances include The Showroom, London, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK, Le Quartier, France, South London Gallery, London, International Project Space, Birmingham, UK, Banff Centre, Canada, ICA, London, Tate Modern, London. Staff took part in the LUX Associate Artists Programme in 2010/11 and was the 2014 inaugural White Building/Lux Collection Residency artist.

Courtesy of Chisenhale Gallery