Saturday, March 24, 2012

Watch This: ¡Viva 16!

¡Viva 16! Directed by Valentin Aguirre and Augie Robles (1994, 30-ish minutes).
A beautiful video document/ary of Latino queer life in The Mission, SF in the early-to-mid 90s, centered around the bar Esta Noche. Just watch...


And this... Pretty Vacant (33 min., 16mm, 1996) by Jim Mendiola.
Both of these tips are from friend Vero Majano

Thursday, March 8, 2012

TATE & ONE

What a busy last week and a half! Last Saturday, February 25th Greg and I had the pleasure of being present for a screening of Falling In Love...  with Barbara Hammer's Superdyke Meets Madame X at the TATE Modern in London. The program, titled "Into the body or into the medium" was named, presented, and conceived by Emily Roysdon who was also the moderator for the lively conversation afterward. In relation to our respective work Hammer, Greg, and I all talked about collaboration, sexuality onscreen (and lack thereof, in our case), trans "positive" representation (not something I/we concern ourselves with), queer relationships & educating publics (also not something I concern myself with, despite being something we/I have been accused of doing.). Greg and I were there from Thursday to Tuesday, which is to say we never got over our jetlag which made for a dizzing, dreamy, whirlwind of a trip. Thanks to Stuart Comer, for bringing us out, hosting us, and for giving us the art & delicious food tour of London.

My London art highlights:
Yayoi Kusama at the TATE
Tacita Dean at the TATE, in the Turbine Hall
Jeremy Deller at the Hayward Gallery
"Powerless Structures, Fig. 101" by Elmgreen & Dragset in Trafalgar Squar
A Little Film Club, watching Pasolini's Teorema at Little Joe magazine's monthly screening

Greg and I in the TATE theater
Into Your Body or Into the Medium program
Emily & the TATE
(L to R) Greg, me, Florrie Burke, Emily Roysdon, Barbara Hammer
 Then...

Greg & I returned from London Tuesday afternoon, and promptly left for LA the next morning for the event Transactivation: Revealing Queer Histories in the Archive at the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives in conjunction with the exhibition Cruising The Archive: Queer Art & Culture in LA, 1945-1980, which is part of Pacific Standard Time. There, on a bill with artists Wu Tsang, Zachary Drucker, and Heather Cassils I debuted ONE for all...  a video I made in response to the the biography of Reed Erickson, whose papers are housed in the ONE archives.
From the program: ONE for all.. (2012, 7 minutes) is about the tempestuous end of the partnership between eccentric, transgender philanthropist Reed Erickson and the seminal homophile organization ONE. The story focuses on the Milbank Estate, a historic Los Angeles mansion at the center of the conflict, and on the expansive but unrealized dreams that Erickson had for the future of queer activism.

Mezzanine at the ONE, waiting to enter Cassil's performance

event flyer