Phranc | Queer for 50 Years
October 11 – November 22, 2025
Opening Reception: October 11, 4–6pm
Artist Talk: November 22, 11am
To celebrate Phranc’s fiftieth anniversary of coming out, Queer for 50 Years opens on October 11th, National Coming Out Day. For this body of work, Phranc sculpted boxing shorts, boxers, and socks out of cardboard, kraft paper, and thread, then painted the surfaces with vivid colors and stripes. As a self-described multi-disciplinary “queer artist, Jewish butch lesbian folksinger and cardboard cobbler” Phranc has devoted her life to uprooting patriarchal norms and celebrating uncensored self-expression through various creative endeavors. Showcasing the importance of clothes and undergarments to gender expression, Queer for 50 years is a continuation of Phranc’s ongoing exploration of her own queer identity as she airs out her dirty laundry.
Artist and musician Phranc uses song, painting and sculpture to champion personal identities and illustrate the struggle, survival, and victory of the queer individual. As an internationally acclaimed and award winning performer, Phranc has been involved in multiple punk rock bands in the 1970’s such as Nervous Gender, Catholic Discipline and Castration Squad. Phranc’s work as a visual artist integrates humor with a butch lesbian aesthetic, utilizing her own experiences to inspire her cardboard and Kraft paper sculptures. She lives and works in Santa Monica, California and Vancouver, British Columbia.
This is Phranc’s fourth solo exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery. She has been featured in solo exhibitions at Friesen Gallery, Ketchum, Idaho, The Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, and most recently at the Institute for the Humanities Gallery at the University of Michigan. Her work has also been included in group exhibitions at Art Center College of Design, Columbus Museum of Art, NY, Museum of Contemporary Art at The Pacific Design Center, and the Craft Contemporary.