I know I usually post very dry updates about various screenings, shows, and events I participate in but I thought I'd switch it up a bit a post some photos from my Christmas vacation in progress! My mom and I are feeling very self-satisfied for finally, after all these years, breaking from our traditional family holiday gathering/potential-knock-down-drag-out and leaving town for a full fledged vacation. We haven't traveled together, aside from a few weekend get-aways here and there, since I was 16 when we went to New Orleans for Halloween. Here are some of my photos from our Holiday trip, so far. Enjoy them with a little twinge of jealousy... (P.S. I've been wearing shorts and tank tops, and swimming in either the ocean or the Gulf every day since we arrived!)
John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, Key Largo
Mom's a Moose
Cookies the size of my head, Key Largo
"Wilhelmina Crossing the 7 Mile Bridge"-- by Rick Worth, a local gay take on "Washington Crossing The Delaware"
Guess who's simply dying to get on that fast-paced, high-adventure CBS reality game show the Amazing Race?! The uber-savvy, managing director for RADAR productions Beth Pickens and the very talented comic book artist and famous vegan hailing from Portland, Oregon--thee Nicole J. Georges. And guess who's dying to help them realize this dream?! Greg Youmans and I.
Check out the audition video Greg and I shot in Akumal, Mexico during our time at the August 2011 RADAR Lab writing retreat (no, this is not all we did there). We just finished editing this today, and the deadline for submissions is midnight tomorrow! Cross your fingers for 'em!
I'm so thrilled to announce the release of my better-half's hot-off-the-press book, Word Is Out: A Queer Film Classic... by the brilliant Greg Youmans (in case you don't know who my better half is). The book is part of a great series about important queer cinematic works, authored by a variety of other brilliant scholars & authors.
Out of the boxes, Onto the shelves!
And the book is partially dedicated to me!!.. along with Sally Gearhart, whom I'm honored to share the dedication with.
A Queer Film Classic on the groundbreaking 1977 documentary that
profiles the lives of ordinary gay men and lesbians of different ages,
races, and backgrounds. Word Is Out found a wide audience
theatrically and, perhaps more importantly, had a national
public-television broadcast. The film provided an intimate portrait of
gay men and lesbians, and by doing so, it played a significant role in
the then-nascent struggle for gay rights. It premiered six months after
Anita Bryant’s infamous "Save Our Children" campaign led to the repeal
of a gay rights ordinance in Florida, and just as other antigay
activists were beginning to copy her tactics elsewhere in the US. With
its affable portrait of twenty-six gay men and women, Word Is Out offered an important counterpoint to the homophobic rhetoric that Bryant and others were spreading.
Greg Youmans examines the historical, political, and aesthetic
significance of this important film, situating it firmly in its
late-1970s context. He also delves beneath the film's surface to explore
the backstory of its making, from the complicated relationships among
its six filmmakers (three men, three women) to the more than 140 video
pre-interviews they conducted in their search for the perfect cast.
Arsenal's Queer Film Classics series cover some of the most important and influential films about and by LGBTQ people.
Like Word Is Out: A Queer Film Classic on Facebook: HERE
Like the whole Queer Film Classics series on Facebook: HERE
I would like to cordially invite you to a night of queer food-themed videos, including Falling In Love... with Chris and Greg Episode 3 "Food!" You won't see any sploshing from us, but that's not say you won't see it elsewhere in the program!
It's TONIGHT at the Periwinkle Cinema @ Artists' Television Access! So sorry for the short notice. Hope to see you there anyway, we'll try not to hold it against you if we don't...
TONIGHT! Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Doors open at 7:45, films start at 8:15
Falling in Love... with Chris & Greg Episode 3: "Food!" 26 min. video by Chris Vargas & Greg Youmans
Artists' Television Access
992 Valencia St.
San Francisco, CA
Plus, queer shorts about food:
• Something Special - Cousin Wonderlette • Greasy Habits - Matthew Strange with Vainhein + Vulvaareola • an Instrument of Ritual: Representing Consciousness Parts I-III - Lindsay Laven + Gina Clark • Feeder Porn I + II - Leo Herrera • Eggs - Peter Max Lawrence • Queer Pessimism - Alien Moon Partnership • 3 Funerals & a Baby - Robbie Hansen • Orange Trilogy - Lorin Murphy & more! Plus: refreshments, snacks, door prizes, fun!
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 3 · 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Featuring work by: Nancy Chan, Rie Hirai, Claire Kessler-Bradner, Kija Lucas, Minette Mangahas, Chris E. Vargas
@ Asian Resource Center Gallery
310 Eighth Street
Oakland, CA
We each have a place we call “home,” but is it the hometown or country, the place you grew up in, your current living space? Home may once have been a space for sleep, work and sustenance, not comfort or “hominess.” Today, it also has become a site for the construction of one’s identity.
At Home examines concepts of home and hominess and the shifting identities derived from definitions of “home.” The artists in At Home come from various perspectives, from immigrants to natives of Oakland Chinatown, yet they all attempt to define home for themselves, and in turn add to a larger notion of “home.”
Curated By Jackie Im
Presented by Kearny Street Workshop and East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation
Greg Youmans and I are extremely proud to announce the most current project from the Falling In Love... with Chris and Greg cycle: the release of our Christmas & recession themed short story, and homage to the O. Henry tale of almost the same name: GIFT OF THE FAGI
by O. Mary
GIFT OF THE FAGI will be included in Darin Klein & Friends limited edition Box of Books IV soon to be released on November 5th! Our video Oh La La! Paris Special will be screened at the release party at Human Resouces in LA, where you may puchase a box of books for the startlingly low price of $20! See below for more info on the Box itself and the party to welcome it into the world:
Darin Klein & Friends Present:
Box of Books, Vol. IV Release Party
6-10pm
Free admission
Human Resources
410 Cottage Home
Los Angeles, CA 90012 (in Chinatown, just off Broadway)
At this one-night only launch party and reception, the
public is invited to peruse the contents of Box of Books, Vol. IV, which is also available to
purchase for $20.00 per box.
Limited edition of 100.
Box of Books, Vol. IV showcases the work of: Heather Benjamin, Ryan Brewer & AA Bronson,
Julia Dzwonkoski & Kye Potter, Brennan Gerard & Ryan Kelly, Abel Baker
Gutierrez, Handbook Magazine (Darren
Ankenbauer), Johanna Jackson, Chris Johanson, Christopher Kardambikis, Dawn
Kasper, David Larsen, Sarah Locke, Jeaneen Lund, Francesca Mirabella, Zac
Monday, Erwin Ong, Davy Rothbart, Jen Smith, Chris Vargas & Greg Youmans,
and e war.
Box of Books, Vol. IV Mini-Exhibition: Julia Dzwonkoski & Kye Potter | Jeaneen
Lund | Christopher Kardambikis | Jen Smith
Box of Books, Vol. IV Interactive Performances at 7pm and 9pm: To Know End by Zac Monday
Box of Books, Vol. IV Super-Short Film Screening at 8pm: Gerard and Kelly in
collaboration with Chelsea Knight | Francesca Mirabella | Chris Vargas and Greg
Youmans
With an ever-expanding network of friends, Darin Klein
curates exhibitions and organizes arts programming, simultaneously
producing, collecting and promoting artists' publications and
independent media. Human Resources
is a team of creative individuals which seeks to broaden engagement
with contemporary and conceptual art, with an emphasis on performative
and underexposed modes of expression. Human Resources is entirely
volunteer run and seeks to foster widespread public appreciation of the
performative arts by encouraging maximum community access. Human
Resources also serves as a point of convergence for diverse and
disparate art communities to engage in conversation and idea-sharing
promoting the sustainability of non-traditional art forms.
I'd be delighted if you'd check out this interview I did with my ol' high school pal, and talented NY-based artist/musician, Rachel Mason for the Art 21 blog! Rachel (aka "Renaissance") is their guest blogger and has written a wonderful blog post there every fine day this week
—
quite impressive to me. After you read my interview...
I recommend you check out her other posts, especially the one about performance artist MPA, the one about my old LA employer and the Mason family business, the "adult book and magazine store" Circus of Books, and Dawn Kasper. Have at it, friends!
I forgot to post about two things I did last week, a screening and a panel. Why didn't I say anything about it to anyone, you ask? I have no answers for you. I just didn't. Sorry.
But just in case you cared, this is what I did...
Wednesday, September 21 · 8:00pm - 9:30pm Periwinkle Queer Cinema Series - Every 3rd Wed. @ Artists' Television Access
"The Lezbrarian" by Chris Vargas
"Have you Seen A Transsexual Before?" by Chris Vargas
"Bodybuilder" by Angela Hans Scheirl and Ursula Pürrer
"Super-8 Girl Games" by Angela Hans Scheirl and Ursula Pürrer
"Zigzagged Rivulet Sneaks Up Shamelessly Wetting Thighs" by Angela Hans Scheirl and Ursula Pürrer
"Elder Gender Fuck" by Lindsay Laven
"Baby" by Lindsay Laven
"Nipples 'n' Knives" by Lorin Murphy
"Revolving Door" by Gio Black Peter and Bruce La Bruce
10 min Intermission
26 min "AIDS Camp" by Gary "Fembot" Gregerson
+ hella-gay door prizes!
Every 3rd Wednesday, we showcase video and films across genres from a
broad spectrum of LGBTQ filmmakers. Our queer cinema series was started
by filmmaker Lorin Murphy at the legendary big GAY warehouse in San
Francisco. After a short hiatus, we are excited to resume our screenings
at our new home, Artists' Television Access. http://www.atasite.org/
Turns out being a UC Berkeley lecturer has some pretty great perks. One of which is being included in the annual faculty show! Greg Youmans and I will be exhibiting Falling In Love... with Chris and Greg "Oh La La! Paris Special" on loop. Come see it on display among the work of my very talented mentors now colleagues. The opening is tonight, hope you can make!
"Oh La La! Paris Special (10 min, 2010)
2011 Art Practice Faculty Show
September 7-24 Reception Wednesday, September 7, 4-7 PM
Castaneda/Reiman Randy Hussong John McNamara Craig Nagasawa Greg Niemeyer aZin Seraj Richard Shaw Chris Vargas & Greg Youmans Sanjay Vore Anne Walsh & Chris Kubick Wanxin Zhang
The Worth Ryder Gallery has served as a hub for
students (graduate and undergraduate), faculty, artists and the Bay Area
cultural community for over forty years. The gallery serves primarily
as an exhibition platform for emerging contemporary artistic strategies
and methodologies.
Worth Ryder Art Gallery
116 Kroeber Hall corner of College Ave and Bancroft Way
After 2 weeks of sticky-hot Caribbean sunshine, white beach sand in every bodily crevice, and mosquito bites aplenty, Greg and I have arrived home from the Yucatan Peninsula! We spent 10 or so of those days among 8 other artists with writing-based practices (i.e. novelists, essayists, a graphic novelist, a food writer, a TV writer) at the RADAR writers lab in beautiful Akumal, Mexico.
Greg and I focused mainly on drafting an episode for the second season of our sitcom series Falling In Love... with Chris and Greg. This next video will have the characters Chris and Greg confront many timely issues such as gay suicide, the It Gets Better project, the recession, queer back-to-the-land movements and our Morrissey-loving/Raver pasts. Oh, and it's a Christmas Special... but we may not have it done by this holiday season as it is quite an ambitious episode involving many new characters and many different locations. Speaking of, does anyone have a bridge Greg can contemplate jumping off of?
At work on the beachfront patio
The retreat was very relaxed yet quite structured. Every day we had 5 scheduled quiet work hours, the first block being in the morning from 9am-12pm, then again after lunch & a snorkel break we'd resume working from 4-6pm. In the evening we'd all come together around a home-cooked Yucatanian-inspired meal by the culinarily talented Beth Pickens (RADAR's managing director and founder of the SF Food Adventure Club). During this time we'd talk about such topics as our days work, our projects in general, or some type of professional aspect of our work (i.e. grants, agents). Twice after dinner, towards the beginning and end of the 10 day session, we had informal readings where we'd each share what we were working on.
Beyond the scheduled work hours, there were many opportunities to explore the flora and fauna of the region, like...
Dragon Fruit
The Birth of Baby Turtles (they were born in the AM and kept in the bucket til PM,
so they'd build up strength for optimum survival)
Scantily clad Iguana
A Croc dog bed
Gonzalo Guerrero statue, commemorating the first Indo-Euro family
As pictorially illustrated above, it was a truly lovely experience. Beyond writing and gawking at the beautiful goddess that is nature herself, Greg and I also received another valuable kind of goddess blessing (sounds like Goddess Dressing). We met with and got some much needed professional consultation from the illustrious Beth Pickens, who has made us see that we don't have to go broke over our project any longer. As of now, Greg and I are actively seeking funding to make this next season! If there are any benefactors reading this right now, get in touch.
Thank you forever and from the bottom of my heart to RADAR productions--Ali, Michelle, & Beth and to the other writers for helping to create this amazingly generous, supportive, hilariously fun, magical and transformative experience.
The Sad Good-bye in cut-offs
(from L: Danny Nguyen, Nicole J. Georges, Sara Jaffe, me, Greg Youmans, & Lorelei Lee)
Another very proud announcement: I'm in this great group show at Pro Arts gallery in Oakland! HAY! The show is already up now, and I regret to announce that I will not be able to make it to the official opening on August 5th (due to my being at a residency on the beach in MEXICO!) but that's not to say you shouldn't go now, to the opening, or anytime before it closes on September 2nd! It's yet another chance to see my 16 minute video Liberaceón, the way it was meant to be seen: on a CRT monitor atop a pink triangle pedestal installed in a gallery. Go!
Greg Youmans, my frequent "collaborator" (wink, wink) and I are mere hours away from embarking upon the first of the two residencies that we're proud to be participating in this Summer.
Our first residency the Golden Snail, will take place off the grid on US Forestry land in southern Oregon. We'll be in residence there; reading, writing, plotting & planning (the next season of Falling In Love...), as well as swimming, hiking, gazing at wildlife, eating outdoors & roasting food on a stick over an open flame, for exactly one week! We even bought a solar shower just for the occasion. This is the rustic cabin we'll be sleeping in or around...
Ludlam House in Brookings, Oregon (site of the Golden Snail residency)
"The Golden Snail Artist's Residency intends to create a space and the time to slow down and become reconnected with ones life work, self, nature and others whom are pursuing the same.
The term work in the above statement is completely defined by the individual participants and can include traditional artist's and arts related work such as writing, drawing and painting or playing music but is also extended to research, reading, meditation, hiking, swimming in a river or jumping in the sea, wallowing in the sun, writing letters, pickling, plant identification, yoga, walking, star gazing, cooking and much more..."
Our second residency is the RADAR writers' lab in Akumal, Mexico for 10 days in August. As you can imagine both Greg and I are totally stoked on that one, too! More on that later. Now, off to the woods...
I am thrilled to announce that I have work in this show which opens on Thursday! My two videos, Have You Ever Seen A Transsexual Before? (2010, 4 min) and Extraordinary Pregnancies (2010, 10 min) will screening during the duration of the opening among the work of many other artists whose work I love and respect! Hope to see you there.
Opening: Thursday June 23rd, 2011 5:30-7:30pm
The Elegance of Refusal
June 23rd - September 16th, 2011
Hours: Monday - Friday 8:30am to 5:30 pm
Gensler
2 Harrison Street, Suite 400
San Francisco, CA 94105
...with li'l ol' me, conducted by the dear Toshio Meronek about my new project! I hope this entices you to come visit the UC Berkeley MFA opening show which opens next week! AHHHHHHH!
Tonight! If you're in Boston, I'd like to encourage you to attend this finely currated video program in the Boston LGBT Film Fest, "I Can Feel It, But I Don't Get It"!
"It's Cool, I'm Good" by Stanya Kahn, 2010, 35:27 min, Los Angeles, USA
Wednesday, May 11 9:30pm
"I Can Feel It, But I Don't Get It" in The Boston LGBT Film Fest
Curated by Jeannie Simms
@ The BRATTLE THEATER Harvard Square
40 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA
TIX $9.75 STUDENTS: $7.75 (bring ID)
A Program of videos at the Boston LGBT Film Festival
Curated by Jeannie Simms
These pieces, all influenced by histories of cinema and contemporary video art explore various seen and unseen forces: materials, logics and pressures that ambiguously ooze into the frame unspoken by unsettling means.
LUCAS MICHAEL'S "El Maragato Barometrica" is a quiet video, sans dialogue, shot in Uruguay on a cell phone camera that documents a flooded house, a truck, it's attached hose, men at work and a slow, unexplained labor process. The eye witness immediacy of the low end video suggests a moment of crisis and delay on the brink of containment or collapse. (Uruguay/USA)
STANYA KAHN'S "It's Cool, I'm Good" follows an androgynously bandaged character with mysteriously attained full-body injuries who speaks to the camera from a bed in a hospital, to strangers at a fast food picnic table, in the belly of a world full of contaminated water, pus filled wounds, littered streets and corporately engineered hot dogs. (Los Angeles, USA)
Flipping by photo after photo throughout the decades at a breakneck clip, the 1970's, 80's, 90's and 2000's provide a backdrop of embarrassing teen hairdos, social and familial tensions and various cheap photo technologies in ALLYSON MITCHELL'S "My Life in 5 Minutes." Master paradigms hover and lurk as the narrative glides and lingers through moments of assimilation and refutation amidst swirling colors and inventive lo-fi animated techniques.
(Toronto, Canada)
"Falling in Love with Chris and Greg: Episode 2 Road Trip! TV Special" by CHRIS VARGAS and GREG YOUMANS uses the iconic American Road Trip, a typically liberating and transcendent cinematic motif, in which a gay/trans couple drive from the west coast into the American heartland chafing and squirming more vigorously under the social, political and biological possibilites of marriage and pregnancy as they pummel toward Vegas--chomping high-fructose snacks, sweating and swapping Native American vocabs as they go. (San Francisco, USA)
My graduate thesis show is nearing its grand opening! Which means I'm about to graduate and I have a fresh new video project to share with the world! Liberaceón, a three-channel video installation with a 16 minute narrative at its center wherein I perform as the late great showman himself, Liberace! For those of you who don't know, I have been working on this for the greater part of my last year in the UC Berkeley MFA program and it is a story very dear to my heart. In this project, I rescript portions of the late showman's biography in order to insert him into a queer history of radical AIDS/HIV activism, but that's all I'm going to say (for now). You must see it to believe it, and believe me, the story I weave is unbelievable. I invite you to attend the opening (May 20th), as well as the artist talks (May 22th) to see for yourself!
Liberaceón video still (2011, 16 minutes)
Also on exhibit are the works of my six other amazing, brilliant, talented, and supportive classmates: Corinna Nicole Brewer, Chun-Shan (Sandie) Yi, Narangkar Glover, Plinio Alberto Hernandez, Merav Tzur, and David Gregory Wallace. Come meet 'em!
...for such a lovely screening and for the longest and most engaged Q+A in recorded herstory at Penn on Wednesday evening! But especially for promoting the event so incredibly well. What a turn-out! Congrats to the newly formed Rethinking Queer group for the write-up on the event in the Daily Pennsylvanian. This was their first event! Thanks for the memories...
Now we're finally in Monréal! We narrowly missed our own Homotopia screening tonight at 2110 Centre For Gender Advocacy, for which we were 30 minutes late due to our first scary small-plane flight out of New Haven being delayed thus missing our connection in Philly, and having to take a much later plane into Canada...plus customs. But the show must and did go on. Thanks for your patience, Canada. You are a kind people. And you have such awesome queer community centres...
Psst, I've got some stuff to tell you. Eric and I are about to embark on a mini tour making two stops on the East Coast and three in Canada. That means if you are in Philly, Middletown CT, Montreal, Ottawa, or Kingston, Ontario we're coming your way!!! We're alternately screening both Criminal Queers and Homotopia--but not at the same events. See below for details...
