Just when you might be disillusioned with the art world, marked by its obsession with power, money, and celebrity, figures like Ed Woodham emerge to rejuvenate your belief in art’s societal impact.
Ed Woodham, a 69-year-old artist, curator, and educator from Atlanta, deeply connects with community through his work. He is best known for his leadership of Art in Odd Places, a public art initiative he co-founded for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. After the September 11 attacks, Woodham revitalized the group in New York as a reaction to the shrinking public space and the PATRIOT Act’s impact on civil liberties. Since 2005, the group has organized DIY street festivals, initially in the Lower East Side and East Village, and from 2008, along 14th Street in Manhattan, establishing itself as a staple of New York’s cultural scene. For its 20th anniversary last year, the festival invited artists, collectives, and the public to engage in the rebellious act of “doing nothing” as a catalyst for change.
Beyond Art in Odd Places, Woodham also conducts a workshop called “Social Malpractice Art” at Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts. He instructs students on creating “secretly coded work to challenge unchecked power” through unconventional performances and interventions that critique corporate America’s artwashing in public spaces.
In a March opinion piece for Hyperallergic, he remarked, “Artists became cultural placeholders — helping rebrand a neighborhood while the conditions for removing the people who lived there were quietly assembled.” This experience led Woodham to question, “What happens when the language of social practice becomes a tool of the very systems it once hoped to challenge?”
This insight hints at why much public art lacks impact.
The following discussion between Woodham and me explores his Atlanta upbringing, his resolute art activism, and his journey as a proud queer elder.
Hyperallergic: When and how did you come out?
Ed Woodham: I came out discreetly, with my first boyfriend during America’s Bicentennial in 1976, while I was a freshman at Middle Georgia College in Cochran, Georgia. A few months later, we shared a dorm room. We were both involved in the theater department and appeared in the musical 1776; I played Thomas Jefferson, and he was the dying drummer boy who sang “Momma Look Sharp.” Our relationship was an open secret, akin to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” situation before the term became common.
Living in the Bible Belt, theater circles were generally more accepting than the wider college community, yet limits existed. Although we were in love, the risk of being discovered was a constant presence. Fear was a fundamental part of daily life.
H: Why did you play Thomas Jefferson?
EW: Every Southern queer kid should face the mythologized portrayal of Thomas Jefferson. Honestly, I have no idea why. I was then a tall, skinny, flamboyant individual who could hit the high notes, trying to get through the Bicentennial. In hindsight, it’s amusing. I was boldly in love while playing a problematic founding father of American heterosexual mythology. Meanwhile, my boyfriend sang the show’s saddest, most beautiful song, captivating the audience every night as the first act concluded.
H: Has the art community been open and accepting of you?
EW: In my interactions with the art world, I’ve maintained an independent stance, including embracing my queerness. I’ve never sought validation from social networks, institutions, academia, the market, or the media, whether as an artist or a queer individual. Over the years, I’ve seen the art world and parts of the queer community give in to gatekeepers, branding, and market influences. This has diluted much of their radical imagination, risk-taking, and transformative potential. I’ve always been drawn to the margins, where people create new ways of seeing and being.
H: Admirable, but doesn’t living on the margins make financial stability difficult? Have you never wanted market success?
EW: I’ve certainly considered the practicality of paying rent, buying groceries, and avoiding anxiety when checking the mail. However, I’ve never actively pursued market success, celebrity status, or success in the cultural world, as I’ve been wary of the attached conditions. I’ve aimed for integrity and success, hoping to be beneficial and useful. I wanted to create work that stayed true to itself and offered opportunities for me, artists, audiences, and communities that might not have existed otherwise. I’ve observed artists, organizations, and institutions posing challenging questions, yet ultimately protecting a brand. When that happens, imagination and honesty are stifled. I’ve been fortunate to have a long journey creating work that mattered to me, even when it wasn’t financially viable. Art in Odd Places is a prime example. That said, I’m open to growth if a wealthy collector wishes to support radical public art.
H: Who have been your mentors? Did you have queer mentors?
EW: In Atlanta, I found mentors in TABOO, a provocative queer artist collective founded by Larry Jens Anderson, Michael Venezia, King Thackston, and David Fraley. Frustrated by the conservatism of the Atlanta art scene, TABOO used satire, humor, and performance to tackle issues like AIDS, sexuality, gender politics, Southern identity, and other topics many galleries deemed unsuitable.
H: What does mentorship mean to you?
EW: Teaching has provided some of my most significant mentorship experiences. I view mentorship as a mutual exchange. My approach is strongly influenced by Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which emphasizes knowledge emerging through shared inquiry, experimentation, and dialogue. The traditional hierarchy between teacher and student dissolves into mutual learning, critical thinking, and collective humanization.
Other notable mentors include Linda Mary Montano, Bonnie Stein, William Pope L., Radhika Subramaniam, LuLu LoLo, Eddie Owens Martin (St. EOM), and Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel Atrib.
H: How does your queerness manifest in your art?
EW: My queerness has provided me with resilience, perseverance, and perspective. Growing up queer in the Deep South during the 1960s and ’70s, amidst nationalism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia, shaped how I perceive the world and myself.
In 1980, I moved to New York City in search of a psychological, sexual, and creative refuge. I arrived just as the East Village arts scene was thriving. Many artists, performers, and dreamers who became my chosen family were soon devastated by AIDS. The epidemic was not just a public health crisis but also a crisis of dignity. Friends and lovers were ostracized, abandoned by institutions, and made to feel disposable because of who they loved. I witnessed brilliant, beautiful people disappear while being told, implicitly and explicitly, that their lives were less valuable. This experience is deeply ingrained in my work. It taught me how quickly humanity can be stripped from those seen as inconvenient and the power of community, resistance, humor, and care.
H: Which queer artwork holds significance for you?
EW: The “NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt,” initiated by Cleve Jones in 1987, is one of the most significant queer artworks to me. It transforms grief into a monumental, collective expression of humanity, remembrance, community, and resilience.
I also draw inspiration from the art and activism of Audre Lorde, Stephen Varble, Agosto Machado, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Wojnarowicz, Larry Levan, Lady Bunny, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, and Edmund White. Each contributed to expanding the possibilities of queer cultural expression while rejecting the notion that respectability is necessary for visibility.
H: What significance does Pride Month hold for you?
EW: This is a challenging question.
Having experienced over 50 years of queer history, Pride Month often feels complex to me. I recall a time when being openly queer could cost you your family, job, housing, safety, or life. I remember the AIDS crisis when our community was abandoned, mocked, feared, and treated as expendable while thousands perished. Pride wasn’t a celebration then; it was a declaration of our existence and refusal to disappear. Today, much of Pride seems disconnected from that history. Too often, it has become a marketing opportunity, a rainbow-wrapped product offering visibility without accountability. The corporations, institutions, and politicians eager to celebrate us in June are often absent when queer people, especially trans individuals, face attacks during the other 11 months of the year.
Throughout my life, I’ve witnessed certain community members repeatedly pushed to the margins, even within queer spaces. Trans people, particularly trans people of color, have borne a significant share of the struggle while receiving a fraction of the resources, recognition, and protection. What I cherish about Pride is not the branding; it’s the resistance. It’s the refusal to be erased. It’s the artists, activists, caregivers, troublemakers, and visionaries who continue to dream of a more inclusive world. At its best, Pride isn’t about assimilation; it’s a reminder that our differences are not problems to be solved. They are sources of creativity, resistance, and collective strength. We will not be confined or erased.
H: Do you feel a connection to emerging queer artists and artworks?
EW: Absolutely.
Art in Odd Places and my teaching practice consistently connect me with remarkable emerging and established queer artists. These interactions keep me curious, challenged, and hopeful. The Leslie-Lohman Museum regularly presents groundbreaking exhibitions that highlight queer voices and histories. Visual AIDS continues to create vital exhibitions and programs that demonstrate the power of art to resist erasure and sustain community. The younger artists I meet are often fearless in ways that inspire me. They remind me that queerness is not a static identity but an evolving conversation.
H: What projects are you currently working on?
EW: On July 11, I’ll debut “Love Saves the Day,” a short documentary celebrating the first anniversary of my sologamist wedding to myself, which occurred on June 15, 2025, at KoKo Lot in Brooklyn. In August, I’ll be an artist-in-residence at Cold Hollow Sculpture Park in Enosburg Falls, Vermont, where I’ll explore its 200 acres of stunning landscape while developing new work and engaging with the local community.
I’ve also been preparing for Art in Odd Places 2026: UTOPIAS, the 21st edition of the public art festival, scheduled for September 26 and 27 along 14th Street in New York City. This fall, I’ll conduct the third iteration of “Social Malpractice” at the School of Visual Arts. The project acts as a speculative think tank, imagining a future where independent cultural expression is tightly controlled, prompting participants to explore creative resistance strategies before they become necessary. From December through January 2027, I’ll display a series of silkscreen prints alongside paintings by queer New York artist Angela Murel in fisura at Galería LANDS in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.
