queer

On May 13th, 2012, BOOKS BY CARLOS MOTTA…

'We Who Feel Differently' (2012), and "Petite Mort' (2011) by Carlos Motta

…Petite Mort: Recollections of a Queer Public (2011) and We Who Feel Differently (2012) – by artist-activist friend, and contemporary queer culture instigator, raconteur, organizer, and editor – arrived in the mail today, which I look forward to reading, and then adding to our little library at next months Sundown Schoolhouse of Queer Home Economics at the Hayward in London.

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By Fritz Haeg on May 13, 2012 | books
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On October 9th, 2011, WHITE CUBICLE TOILET GALLERY…

Tom Dozol at White Cubicle Toilet Gallery

…a favorite art space in town which occupies the 1.40 x 1.40 square meter ladies bathroom of the great George & Dragon (the friendly East End where-everyone-knows-your-name sort of queer-arty hangout) founded and curated by Pablo Leon de la Barra featuring a history of exhibiting artists that would be the envy of any contemporary art museum, opened tonight with a ribbon cutting ceremony (with old friend, Jeremy Shaw aka Circlesquare djing and Michael Stipe making the rounds) to inaugurate the show by Thomas Dozol…

THOMAS DOZOL, I IS NOW
WHITE CUBICLE TOILET GALLERY is honoured to present an exhibition by Thomas Dozol. I IS NOW Dozol presents a series of new photographic work which explores the relationship between the body, sign language, abstract geometry and colour codes. For it, Dozol has created a whole alphabet of hand signs screen printed as black light posters. Writing with a non-letter alphabet, images become phrases which become haiku like texts, but which also refer to the silent languages of minorities and subcultures. The back light posters also remind us of propaganda and political posters of the seventies and of the aesthetics of lost utopias. For the exhibition Dozol transforms the White Cubicle into a glow in the dark installation.

THE WHITE CUBICLE TOILET GALLERY measures 1.40 by1.40 metres, is located within the Ladies Toilet of the George and Dragon, and works with no budget, staff or boundaries. White Cubicle presents a discerning programme of local and international manifestations as an antidote to London’s sometimes extremely commodified art scene. Past exhibitions have included the work of Deborah Castillo, Gregorio Magnani, Butt Magazine, Federico Herrero, Terence Koh, i-Cabin, Steven Gontarski, Pixis Fanzine/Princess Julia and Hanah, General Idea and avaf, Basso Magazin, Carl Hopgood, Giles Round, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Superm, (Brian Kenny and Slava Mogutin), Elkin Calderon, Wolfgang Tillmans, Calvin Holbrook/Hate Magazine, Husam el Odeh, Simon Popper, Fur, Dik Fagazine, Rick Castro/Abravanation, Jean Michel Wicker, Noki, Ellen Cantor,Karl Holmqvist, Julie Verhoeven, Aldo Chaparro, Esther Planas, Nikos Pantazopoulos, Luis Venegas, Twinklife, Rocky Alvarez, Benedetto Chirco, STH Magazine, Elmgreen & Dragset, Francesc Ruiz, Sico Carlier, Stefan Benchoam…

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By Fritz Haeg on October 9, 2011 | art, London
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On June 11th, 2011, LADY GAGA AT EUROPRIDE…

Circo Massimo crowds anticipate Gaga

…filled Circo Massimo (where ancient Romans raced chariots, staged mock ship battles, and held religious festivals) with a reported million people – for a speech and a couple of songs on piano tonight – concluding the parade that started at Piazza della Repubblica, marched through the city, down Via dei Fori Imperiali, around the Coliseum – stopping periodically for impromptu dance parties in the streets to the deep pulsing bass of mega-speaker laden trucks – but the best part by far was watching the beaming relieved Italian faces (otherwise burdened by the daily spectacle of an embarrassing political and cultural environment in a gradual 17 year – Berlusconi took national office May 10, 1994 – dispiriting downward spiral making international headlines) of all ages and walks of life witnessing a rare display of diversity celebration on their streets.

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By Fritz Haeg on June 11, 2011 | queer
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On November 18th, 2010, WHY BENILDE-ST. MARGARET’S IS STILL A HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT FOR GAY TEENS…

Sean Simonson, Benilde-St. Margaret's senior whose editorial "Life as a Gay Teenager" was censored by the school administration, MPR Photo by Nikki Tundel

…all of these years since I graduated from that Minneapolis Catholic high school – where I tried to disappear as much as possible while enduring four years as a verbally abused gay teen from 1983-87 while teachers and administrators sanctioned it with their silence – is on my mind today as I read about the current examples of hypocrisy at the very same school, where president Bob Tift and principal Sue Skinner censored the editorial “Life as a Gay Teenager” by senior Sean Simonson (plus an editorial critical of the $1 million spent by Archbishop Nienstedt on the production and distribution of Preserving Marriage in Minnesota, a DVD which explicitly endorses an amendment to the state constitution to bar homosexuals right to marry under civil law) from the student newspaper because there was “…confusion about the teachings of the Catholic Church; therefore, the administration exercised its prerogative to have the material removed from the website” – and I wonder just what kind of adults administer a school where young vulnerable students publicly declare that they are being driven to contemplate suicide by daily verbal abuse and still don’t take meaningful action – while silencing dialog about the situation – seeming more concerned with appearances and “lack of confusion”?…but with stories coming in from Gawker, The Washington Post, Minnesota Public Radio, The Advocate, The Star-Tribune, The Pioneer Press, The City Pages, Just Out, Minnesota Post, Huffington Post, the local Fox and CBS TV news, Student Press Law Center, Change.org, and journalist Nick Coleman, I hope they are duly shamed into action – like FINALLY allowing the students to organize a gay-straight alliance, which the administration has always banned. (link to the original censored text with original comments from the school community)

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By Fritz Haeg on November 18, 2010 | activism, glbt links
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On November 13th, 2010, THE BERLIN TIERGARTEN MEMORIAL TO HOMOSEXUALS PERSECUTED…

close-up view of the video through the portal, and the monument from a distance

…under Nazism by Berlin based artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset (whose place I happen to be staying at this week) provides a poetically uncomfortable public moment as people are drawn to peer into the eye-level portal in the mysterious concrete monolith on the side of the walking path, which turns out to provide a view of a continuously looping video of two men kissing in the park. (more on Wikipedia)

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By Fritz Haeg on November 13, 2010 | art, travel
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On May 26th, 2010, LITTLE JOE: A MAGAZINE ABOUT QUEERS AND CINEMA, MOSTLY…

Little Joe Magazine No. 1

…“a new biannual publication looking at film from a different perspective. It is a direct move away from the traditional method of reviewing all current and future releases towards a more selective and eclectic focus on films that inspire alternative discourse.” …celebrates tonight (7pm) at London’s Bistrotheque (23-27 Wadeson Street) the release of issue No.1 – which includes a little essay of my own – a personal & queer perspective on the 1985 Merchant and Ivory adaptation of E.M. Forster’s “A Room With a View” – plus contributions by: Cam Archer, Jack Barnes, Paul Burston, Rick Castro, Stuart Henderson, William E Jones, Hynam Kendall, Michael Linington, Feargus O’Sullivan, William Maltese, Yvan Martinez, Frederico Pellacin, Ryan Powell, John David Rhodes, Stuart Sandford, Joshua Trees.- (Little Joe website)

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By Fritz Haeg on May 26, 2010 | publications
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On May 17th, 2010, RIDYKEULOUS…

a RIDYKEULOUS motto

…describe themselves thusly:

Alive since ’05, Ridykeulous is the collaborative effort of Nicole Eisenman & A.L. Steiner to subvert, sabotage and overturn the language commonly used to define feminism and lesbian art. Our efforts usually involve curation, intervention, publication, performance and highly-regarded affects on happenstance.

…and have published explicit sexy ‘zines, staged some brilliant outrageous super engaging lez-trans-queer nights of performance, plus a recent collective exhibition, and tonight they present a film in NYC, here is their open invitation to attend:

Dear friends we’ve accepted and ignored,

Ridykeulous is pleased to present the 80’s classic Times Square, a film Nicky E and UnkAL starred in when they were just tweens. Instead of wasting away those precious years watching Jo swagger around the set of The Facts of Life, Nicky and Pam (Steiner’s name had to be changed due to her involvement in the kidnapping of Patty Hearst) were making inroads into the world of high fashion with their garbage bag mini-dresses and rocking out on top of a marquee in Times Square.

There has never been a better time to be a teenage runaway then right NOW! Pop culture is suddenly awash in all things lesbian and runaways with films like The Runaways*. Ridykeulous misses the old Times Square, but this film is perhaps one of the best documents of the beautiful pre-Applebee’s squalor.

Although the film’s break-out hit single “Your Daughter is One” shocked our parents at the time, our highest high was quickly followed by a crushing low: nothing was more disappointing then the producers cutting out our sex scene, perhaps the hottest sex scene ever recorded on film between two Jews. Allegedly “permanently lost”, the sex scene is believed to have been spotted in the dusty bowels of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. At this VERY MOMENT, a small but not unattractive cadre of private investigators in wifebeaters are working up a sweat and moaning inappropriately as they “comb the stacks” to retrieve it.

As the trailer for our film stated in a gravely patriarchal voice, “Pam and Nicky found themselves on the streets of New York…now the whole city is gonna share their exhilaration.” Need more be said about this film and the trajectory of our lives? We think not.

Love, Ridykeulous

* it should be noted that Ridykeulous finds accepting Dakota Fanning as a “R/runaway” a ginormous stretch, even for those amongst us with the most advanced invaginations

Monday, May 17, 2010
8:00pm – 11:00pm
IFC Center
323 6th Ave. at 3rd St.
New York, NY

ORDER TICKETS

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By Fritz Haeg on May 17, 2010 | art
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On March 19th, 2010, RYAN TRECARTIN…

Ryan Trecartin in Butt, March 2010

…the phenomenal peripatetic psychedelic video artist (perhaps you recall his brilliant break-out work A Family Finds Entertainment (2004) from the 2006 Whitney Biennial where it was unfortunately presented on a little monitor perched atop a pedestal adjacent to the bustling bank of elevators?) has an riveting/revealing/funny interview in the new issue of Butt Magazine. (more about Ryan and his work from Elizabeth Dee Gallery)

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By Fritz Haeg on March 19, 2010 | art
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On February 26th, 2010, “DAMELO TODO” (GIVE ME EVERYTHING)…

still from the shoot of Wu Tsang's "Damelo Todo" (Give Me Everything)

…is the title of an upcoming documentary directed by friend Wu Tsang, which is described as “…a hybrid documentary/narrative depicting Latina transgender women who build community with queer performance artists at downtown Los Angeles bar the Silver Platter.” We can’t wait to see it! (website)

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By Fritz Haeg on February 26, 2010 | film
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On February 17th, 2010, GUGGENHEIM GAY PARADE DOWN RAINBOW PAINTED RAMPS…

"Guggenheim Gay Parade Down Rainbow Painted Ramps" for the museum exhibition Contemplating the Void

…is my proposal on view in the Contemplating the Void show that opens at the Guggenheim Museum today. (webpage of other proposals)

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By Fritz Haeg on February 17, 2010 | art
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On February 15th, 2010, BUTT MAGAZINE…

BUTT Magazine Valentines Party visuals.

…my favorite periodical, queer or otherwise, posted pictures of their NYC Valentines Day party, and I’m wishing I could have been there. (Butt link)

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By Fritz Haeg on February 15, 2010 | publications
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On February 10th, 2010, AA BRONSON…

Volumes #1-#7 of Printed Matter's Artists & Activists series

…(queer artist, shaman, healer, media guru, General Idea founder, and Printed Matter director) sent me the complete set of the Printed Matter’s “Artists & Activists” series for me to review as I begin work on #8 in the commissioned series, which we hope to have ready by June – in the mean time I am also excited by his latest endeavor “inspired by faerie circles, tea parties, queer rituals, group therapy, ceremonial magic, quilting bees, circle jerks, and other spiritual, psychological and social forms,” AA Bronson’s School for Young Shamans at the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada from May 10th through June 18th – I wish I could be there! (AA’s website)

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By Fritz Haeg on February 10, 2010 | activism
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