Who is Goldendean?

Goldendean (they/them) makes trouble. Working at the intersections of trans media visual culture, performance and community action, their practice bridges genres of documentary, fiction and fantasy to produce radical queer counter narratives, and experiences for repair and resistance.

AKA Dean Hutton, their strategy of simple disruptive actions share moments of soft courage, affirming the rights of all bodies to exist, be celebrated, and protected. An artist-in-residence at the University of Johannesburg, their research embraces collaborative praxis and embodied play to produce new forms of artWork – sculptural objects made from sustainable materials and living biomatter that works to support ecosystem health, and build cultural and ecological value for local communities.(1976, ZA)


*Genderqueer is a non-binary transgender identity. Please use They/Them gender-neutral pronouns.

#goldendeaniscoming
#planb
#gatheringofstrangers
#thisisnotworking
#fuckwhitepeople
#queerasinfuckyou
#luckydean
#tenderqueer
#goldenmeme

Dean works as a sessional lecturer at Wits University’s School of Arts in the Visual Art, History of Art, and Theatre and Performance departments. They also teach visual cultures at  Market Photo Workshop. Dean continues to develop spaces for inclusive shared cultural practice. They prioritise learning to support humxn dignity, to contribute to the building of loving communities and resilient social movements. 

Dean Hutton has a Masters of Fine Arts, with distinction, from the University of Cape Town. They are a fellow of the Institute for Creative Arts. Their book Plan B, a gathering of strangers (or) This is not working is published in Germany by iwalewabooks.

In 2017 they won a significant legal battle around Freedom of Expression in a South African Equality Court. The landmark ruling dismissed charges of Hate Speech laid against the exhibition of art posters displaying the words “Fuck White People” at the South African Iziko National Gallery. Situating Hutton’s work in a broader anti-colonial struggle to “confront, reject and dismantle structures, systems, knowledge, skills, and attitudes of power that keep white people racist,” Chief Magistrate DM Thulare, ruled that the work’s context, as art, brought attention to structural racism and white supremacy, drawing South Africans to a “critical moment of self-reflection”  of race and privilege and hurt feelings.

Contact Dean here

Living breathing inflatable sculptures by Goldendean

As a “Fat Queer White Trans body” in the context of South Africa, artist Dean Hutton questions who or what is entitled to take up space. In doing so, they address the personal and political of hypervisibility: being visible (as a fat, queer, trans body) and invisible, unimportant at the same time (as a fat, queer, trans body). Their Tenderqueer sculptures “soft-radicals” – are round, soft, flexible and inviting. Our society expects fat and messy bodies to turn up traumatized and out of breath and never cheerful, horny, or beaming with a political speech. Soft Vxnxs creates comfort and space for vulnerability. Share your experience with this comfort object! #softvxnxs #goldendean #softradicals

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjpViFjqjnn/

Soft Vxnxs

Big Fat Light Merqueer giant inflatable soft sculpture at NDSM

  • Big Fat Light MerQueer @NDSM
  • Big Fat Light MerQueer @NDSM Amsterdam 2021
  • Big Fat Light MerQueer @NDSM Amsterdam 2021

Breathe Goldendean at Spier Light Festival

  • Breathe - Light inflatables @Spier Light Festival 2019
  • Breathe - Light inflatables @Spier Light Festival 2019
  • Breathe - Light inflatables @Spier Light Festival 2019

Performance

GOLDENDEAN presents an evolving public performance probing the fascination with the flesh of extraordinary queer bodies. Goldendean’s strategy of simple and often improvised actions, by a Fat Queer White Trans body, share moments of soft courage to affirm the right of all bodies to exist, to be celebrated and protected.

[smartslider3 alias=”performanceart”]

Books

PLAN B. A GATHERING OF STRANGERS (OR) THIS IS NOT WORKING

Queering a dissertation submitted for a Masters degree, this book explores how strategies of Technology as Self-reflection and Radical Sharing, Queer Love and Queer Disobedience contribute to “making whiteness strange” by destabilising the normal invisibility of whiteness to bring the white body under surveillance.

Published in Germany in 2018 by iwalewabooks, this 280 page book is vividly illustrated with notes, process drawings, photos, and memes. Order for 25€ direct from the publisher.

Limited signed copies of the book are available in South Africa direct from the artist
R420 per copy, Students R390. Postage: R150 postnet-to-postnet

Transitions, in search of an authentic queer

The images and text in the book document the experiences of a life being realised in real time, and for the most part shared immediately on social media. Dean Hutton is on a mission to explore how mobile phones have changed how we interact as communities; how we physically live on an international stage in the virtual; and how these media possibilities have empowered the liminal voice to shout, to be, without restriction. The accessibility of the tools reflects another interest: in making art that is utterly consumable, simply and beautifully bridging the gaps between artist, subject and the audience’s relationship to us. Their interest remains the narratives of people who inform social concerns. making work for people, not for art’s sake, nor for artist’s sake. It is work made within and for public spaces and the people occupying them. It is visceral, immediate. Not an exercise but a story: feelings, friendship, human beings being human. Love.

150 copies, signed, numbered, hand embossed.
120 pages including photography, and texts by Dean Hutton, Alberta Whittle, Katherine Robinson, Phillippa Yaa and Brooklyn Pakhati.
out-of-print
http://transitionsqueer.tumblr.com/

I, Joburg Limited Edition book

HUTTON does not love JOBURG. THEY crave it. THEY ARE obsessed with JOBURG. THEY treat its streets and depressions and valleys, its people much like a stalker would. THEY ARE a menace. JOBURG is not just home, she is a muse. 32 Pages of photographs by Dean Hutton and texts by Maria Fidel Regueros, Myer Taub, Lesley Perkes, and Phillippa Yaa de Villiers. 100 copies, signed, numbered, hand embossed.
Out of print
https://www.lensculture.com/articles/dean-hutton-i-joburg