Nancy Pelosi invited me to the inauguration but unfortunately I won't be able to go as I don't have a goddam thing to wear, unless I pull out my impeachment gown that is still stained from last year. Thrilled that instead of an inauguration ball there will be a socially distanced Bukake Gala where Lady Gaga, Bruce Springstein along with Marilyn Manson will be the featured performers.
Having a great time on the jury for the London Short Film Festival with my fellow jurists the British/Nigerian director Ngozi Onwurah and independent Canadian First Nations programmer Jason Ryle who use to be Executive Director of Imagine NATIVE an indigenous run arts organization. Jason is Ojibwe just like my best girlfriend and longtime collaborator Glen Meadmore who originally hails from Winnipeg, Canada. My grandmother was a Choctaw raised on the reservation so there was a lot of Native American energies flowing during our Zoom Jury Meetings.
Had a sweet reunion of sorts via the phone with my dear old friend Jose Montaño. Jose is a very cultured and prolific genius. Who has worked a varied and storied career as a Production Designer for Film and Commercials. He is probably best known for his work on the REM video Losing My Religion and the Elizabeth Taylor commercials for White Diamond directed by Herb Ritts and countless other projects that you've seen and weren't aware of. Jose's father was a famous Bolivian architect and his mother a Swedish actress whose family has far reaching international activist roots. Jose now works only for social justice causes with his very talented husband Ty in the Seattle area. They actually live in one of the incredible sculptural mid century homes his father had designed. It was so great to klatch with Jose after so many years apart. Jose, the late great Mrs. Michael Glass and I were quite the triumph errant back in the day in Los Angeles causing major havoc.
*
The latest from Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi:
Bortolozzi Gazette
Now featuring a special contribution by
Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings
View
*
A great fundraiser for an old movie palace in San Pedro, California with my old pal the great Janet Klein:
On January 20, 1931, Warner Brothers opened their magnificent San Pedro Theatre to a star-studded crowd with back-to-back sold out shows.
Kick off a year of celebration at the Warner Grand's 90th Birthday Party, a livestream event featuring music and old time style short film from Janet Klein & Her Parlor Boys playing the vaudeville and ragtime hits of the 1920s & 1930s plus an onscreen cocktail/mocktail demo!
Tickets can be purchased with or without a Party Package. Packages include cocktail/mocktail ingredients, birthday cake and party favors. Follow along with our local mixologist to make delicious Prohibition-era refreshments.
Packages will be available for pickup. Flapper attire optional.
Fundraiser for Love the Lobby, Grand Vision’s Campaign to restore the Warner Grand Theatre’s historic lobbies.
Look out for other virtual (and maybe live) events throughout the year. More Concerts and Swanky Cocktails, Classic Films, Lindy Hop Lessons, Pub-style Trivia and more!
DATE: Saturday, January 23, 2021 / 7:00 PM --- TICKET ONLY
Buy
DATE: Saturday, January 23, 2021 / 7:00PM --- TICKET & PARTY PACKAGES
Buy
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Durchnässt in urinierter Grafschaft
Sunday, January 10, 2021
wettbewerbsfähige große Schwänze
wettbewerbsfähige große Schwänze-When I lived in Koreatown in a very large homo moderne flat on Edgemont Drive my downstairs neighbors were a very cute couple named Keythe Farley and Ann Close-Farley. They had moved into the building in the last five years or so that I lived there and were friends of Laurie Pike, the publisher and editor of Glue Magazine where I wrote a regular column called "Because I Said So". Laurie use to say that they were the "ultimate queers in that Keythe was a gay man and Ann a lesbian, Laurie Pike also compared their marriage to that of the great writer Dodie Bellamy and late poet Kevin Kellian, two personal heroes of mine in the queer literary scene of San Francisco and beyond.
I didnt know very much about Keythe and Ann when they moved in other then what Laurie told me, that Keythe was a theater actor and director with Tim Robbins' Actors Gang and Ann was a costume designer. They seemed pleasant enough with Ann favouring crazy colored hair and kooky outfits. My eyebrows were raised a bit when Laurie mentioned that they were religious, as I didn't know what to expect from that. They wound up being quite pleasant neighbors, we were never friends but we were friendly. I think they were a little scared of me, and since i had been living at the complex for the longest time I was Queen Bee, so they never complained about the noise that I made even after they started to have children. I was the top floor apartment and lets face it I don't think many people would want to live below Ms. Vaginal Davis.
Later I found out that Keythe had written a Broadway bound musical theater piece called BatBoy that became very well received. Shortly after that they bought a house somewhere in the suburbs I believe.
I don't know why I suddenly started to think about them but during this second lockdown in Berlin my feeble mind keeps trailing off to the not so distant past.
*
My West Coast gallery is showing a fascinating exhibition. If you are in the Pacific Northwest and are able to you might want to check it out:
Adams and Ollman is pleased to present three works by William "Bill" Traylor (b. 1853, Benton, Alabama; d. 1949, Montgomery, Alabama) on view at the gallery January 9 through February 6, 2021. Traylor, a self-taught artist, born into slavery, began to draw at the age of 85 while living on the streets of Montgomery, Alabama. Using discarded cardboard and signs, pencil, and poster paint, Traylor recorded his memories of plantation life and later observations of the city—uniquely and distinctly describing animals, human figures, and abstract forms with a commanding use of line, color, and composition. Traylor's body of work speaks poignantly to the complexities, inequalities, and tensions that the artist experienced and witnessed during the Jim Crow Era in the United States.
adamsandollman.com
Keythe Farley, actor and director looking quite distinguished with his salt and pepper hair.
Costume Designer Ann Close-Farley looking sweet and bubbly.
Costumes of Ann Close-Farley
I didnt know very much about Keythe and Ann when they moved in other then what Laurie told me, that Keythe was a theater actor and director with Tim Robbins' Actors Gang and Ann was a costume designer. They seemed pleasant enough with Ann favouring crazy colored hair and kooky outfits. My eyebrows were raised a bit when Laurie mentioned that they were religious, as I didn't know what to expect from that. They wound up being quite pleasant neighbors, we were never friends but we were friendly. I think they were a little scared of me, and since i had been living at the complex for the longest time I was Queen Bee, so they never complained about the noise that I made even after they started to have children. I was the top floor apartment and lets face it I don't think many people would want to live below Ms. Vaginal Davis.
Later I found out that Keythe had written a Broadway bound musical theater piece called BatBoy that became very well received. Shortly after that they bought a house somewhere in the suburbs I believe.
I don't know why I suddenly started to think about them but during this second lockdown in Berlin my feeble mind keeps trailing off to the not so distant past.
*
My West Coast gallery is showing a fascinating exhibition. If you are in the Pacific Northwest and are able to you might want to check it out:
Adams and Ollman is pleased to present three works by William "Bill" Traylor (b. 1853, Benton, Alabama; d. 1949, Montgomery, Alabama) on view at the gallery January 9 through February 6, 2021. Traylor, a self-taught artist, born into slavery, began to draw at the age of 85 while living on the streets of Montgomery, Alabama. Using discarded cardboard and signs, pencil, and poster paint, Traylor recorded his memories of plantation life and later observations of the city—uniquely and distinctly describing animals, human figures, and abstract forms with a commanding use of line, color, and composition. Traylor's body of work speaks poignantly to the complexities, inequalities, and tensions that the artist experienced and witnessed during the Jim Crow Era in the United States.
adamsandollman.com
Keythe Farley, actor and director looking quite distinguished with his salt and pepper hair.
Costume Designer Ann Close-Farley looking sweet and bubbly.
Costumes of Ann Close-Farley
Sunday, January 03, 2021
WISSEN SIE SCHON
Der Gott und Die Bajadere' Der Zug Nach dem Westen
Joel Gibb of The Hidden Cameras forwarded to me recently a review in the old indie music periodical Option of Glen Meadmore's album Chicken & Biscuits from the 1980s. The dude reviewer lambasted Glen's record showing his contempt and rampant homophobia in no uncertain terms. That was typical in the 1980's and 1990's, and I could give a million other examples of such behavior in the print media both mainstream and so called underground press.
I remember quite vividly in the early 1990s getting into a playfull voice mail battle and letter writing calling out with Mike Shea, the queer normative publisher/editor of AP (Alternative Press) Magazine out of Ohio. The publication had printed a rather snarky review of the premiere issue of Fertile LaToyah Jackson Video Magazine.
Looked up AP online recently and they still exist. Now thats a major achievement as both Option and SPIN Magazine bit the proverbial fairy dust years ago. Saw pics of Mr. Shea and he has aged quite well looking like a distinguished skateboarder silver fox. I've only been to Ohio a few times. The first time with Margaret Cho's Notorious C.H.O. Tour back in 2001-02 and then in 2006 when Jenny Klein invited me as a visiting artist at Ohio State University in Athens, Ohio where I did my infamous Tom Cruise Loves Women-The Women and Tom Cruise presentation that enthralled the campus.
*
Its the new year so i want you all to see a new sun in the sky and help support Lia Gangitano's Participant Inc. Gallery in New York City. Participant is the only Not For Profit Gallery in New York and needs your support. Donate donate donate now and then donate again.
Someone from Los Angeles was telling me the other day that the Silverlake pub Akbar had raised over $150,000 in less than 48 hours in a Go Fund Me campaign. This particular person seemed to think that the owners of the bar used Covid relief money to pay for a lot of personal business and home expenses and didn't extend money to employees. I've known the owners of Akbar Scott and Peter since the old Theoretical days and I hope that this is just some idol gossip. One of my dearest friends Kimberly Kim of North Korea who use to be the head bartender at Bricktops at the Parlour Club in the Russian Quartier of Hollywood and has been a longtime employee of Akbar and does the amazing club Day Goth with Bradford Nordeen. I hope some of the money raised will go to helping Kimberly Kim.
I hate to think that the owners weren't supporting employees, especially as they are very successful entertainment industry players. Of course i know nothing about the ins and outs of running a business being a right brain personality type. Back in the mid 1990s i would sometime take the place of Divinity Fudge checking ID's at Akbar which was always fun and flirty.
I wish that legendary LA queer bars like The Score and The Spotlight had been able to have fundraisers that could have kept them in business.
2020 2021 THANK YOU
2020
Jordan Strafer, No Bag
On view through January 10, 2021
participantafterdark.art
Untitled (Unintelligible Yoruba prayer)
Performed by Raymond Pinto
Organized by Serubiri Moses
Video & Lighting Director: Glen Fogel
Production Manager & Camera: Jordan Strafer
Audio & Video Engineer: Lazar Bozic
Video Premiere upcoming on Participant After Dark starting January 17, 2021
JOE IS JOE
a reading performance from Joe Westmoreland’s 2001 classic novel Tramps Like Us, hosted by Eileen Myles and Tom Cole, with special guests: Brontez Purnell, Erin Kimmel, Samuel Delany, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Tony Stinkmetal, Lori E. Seid, Ryan McGinley, Johanna Fateman, Roberta Colindrez, and with music by Anohni
Jordan Strafer in dialogue with Darla Migan
Jonathan Berger, An Introduction to Nameless Love
Co-commissioned and co-presented with the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
The Most Important Moments in Art in 2020 in The New York Times
Johanna Fateman's Best of 2020 in Artforum
Thomas J. Lax's Best of 2020 in Artforum
Andrea K. Scott in The New Yorker
Jerry Saltz Best of 2020 in New York Magazine
Roberta Smith in The New York Times
Evan Moffitt in Frieze
Abraham Adams in Artforum
Emily Steer in Elephant
Brienne Walsh in Forbes
Ksenia Soboleva in The Brooklyn Rail
Gabriella Angeleti and Wallace Ludel for The Art Newspaper
Stephanie Simon with Spectrum News NY 1
VAGINAL DAVIS PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
DJ set by: April Hunt
Welcome by our host: Justin Vivian Bond
Toast to our outgoing Board President Jacqueline Humphries by:
Lia Gangitano and Jeffrey Gibson
Presidential Acceptance Poem for Participant Inc
by our incoming Board President: Vaginal Davis
Followed by remarks, performance and video interludes by: Jonathan Berger with Michael Stipe, Baseera Khan, Susanne Sachsse, Sofia Moreno, Charles Atlas, Glendalys Medina, CHRISTEENE, Narcissister, Ron Athey, and a closing astrological forecast by Constantina Zavitsanos and Tourmaline.
ASL Interpretation: Candace Davider
Technical Director: Glen Fogel
Cameras and video tech: Lazar Bozic and Jordan Strafer
CHRISTEENE
LIVE VIRTUAL SHOW AND VIDEO RELEASE
In October 2020, we launched PARTICIPANT AFTER DARK, a virtual performance, screening, and event space with a full-length live performance by the artist labeled "CHRISTEENE" in anticipation of a worldwide viral release of their new music video NIGHT WINDOW directed by PJ Raval and presented by Barrett Barrera Projects. Performed at Coffey Street Studio in Red Hook BK, Principal Designer Guy Smith of Free Radical Design Group Inc on sound, lighting, cameras, and live-stream with Technical Director Glen Fogel.
The site hosts artist projects commissioned specifically for the AFTER DARK web platform and remote viewing. PARTICIPANT invited artist Glen Fogel to design and develop AFTER DARK. Artists will work with Fogel through the Fall/Spring 2020-21 season, inhabiting the site and fully modifying it for their projects' specific needs. AFTER DARK is conceived of as a blank slate, removing as much institutional framework as possible. The site will only present current projects, and will often go ’dark’ in between events.
CONTEXT-CON
An online book launch (in the form of a Comic Con) event celebrating Alexandro Segade's graphic novel The Context, published by Primary Information. Co-hosted by Human Resources, Los Angeles. Interpreting The Context’s superheroes, special guests include: Ei Arakawa as Drives; Jennifer Doyle as The Body; Jonah Groeneboer as Form; Mary Kelly as Cathexis; Jennifer Moon as Barelife; Tavia Nyong’o as Objector; and David Velasco as Biopower; followed by Alexandro Segade in conversation with scholar andré Carrington; and live drawing with graphic novelist Luciano Vecchio.
Divas nos Queremos
A conversation with Sofia Moreno, KJ Freeman, and Laura Brown
Co-hosted by HOUSING NY
See Terremoto
Shrine: DJ Set, Poetry Reading, Public Discussion
Raymond Pinto, Serubiri Moses, Pamela Sneed, Jaime Shearn Coan, and Kojo Abudu; an evening of commemorations dedicated to Assotto Saint and Rotimi Fani-Kayode, conceived as a platform for re-memory and revisiting 1980s sexually dissident history in NYC.
Joel Gibb of The Hidden Cameras forwarded to me recently a review in the old indie music periodical Option of Glen Meadmore's album Chicken & Biscuits from the 1980s. The dude reviewer lambasted Glen's record showing his contempt and rampant homophobia in no uncertain terms. That was typical in the 1980's and 1990's, and I could give a million other examples of such behavior in the print media both mainstream and so called underground press.
I remember quite vividly in the early 1990s getting into a playfull voice mail battle and letter writing calling out with Mike Shea, the queer normative publisher/editor of AP (Alternative Press) Magazine out of Ohio. The publication had printed a rather snarky review of the premiere issue of Fertile LaToyah Jackson Video Magazine.
Looked up AP online recently and they still exist. Now thats a major achievement as both Option and SPIN Magazine bit the proverbial fairy dust years ago. Saw pics of Mr. Shea and he has aged quite well looking like a distinguished skateboarder silver fox. I've only been to Ohio a few times. The first time with Margaret Cho's Notorious C.H.O. Tour back in 2001-02 and then in 2006 when Jenny Klein invited me as a visiting artist at Ohio State University in Athens, Ohio where I did my infamous Tom Cruise Loves Women-The Women and Tom Cruise presentation that enthralled the campus.
*
Its the new year so i want you all to see a new sun in the sky and help support Lia Gangitano's Participant Inc. Gallery in New York City. Participant is the only Not For Profit Gallery in New York and needs your support. Donate donate donate now and then donate again.
Someone from Los Angeles was telling me the other day that the Silverlake pub Akbar had raised over $150,000 in less than 48 hours in a Go Fund Me campaign. This particular person seemed to think that the owners of the bar used Covid relief money to pay for a lot of personal business and home expenses and didn't extend money to employees. I've known the owners of Akbar Scott and Peter since the old Theoretical days and I hope that this is just some idol gossip. One of my dearest friends Kimberly Kim of North Korea who use to be the head bartender at Bricktops at the Parlour Club in the Russian Quartier of Hollywood and has been a longtime employee of Akbar and does the amazing club Day Goth with Bradford Nordeen. I hope some of the money raised will go to helping Kimberly Kim.
I hate to think that the owners weren't supporting employees, especially as they are very successful entertainment industry players. Of course i know nothing about the ins and outs of running a business being a right brain personality type. Back in the mid 1990s i would sometime take the place of Divinity Fudge checking ID's at Akbar which was always fun and flirty.
I wish that legendary LA queer bars like The Score and The Spotlight had been able to have fundraisers that could have kept them in business.
2020 2021 THANK YOU
2020
Jordan Strafer, No Bag
On view through January 10, 2021
participantafterdark.art
Untitled (Unintelligible Yoruba prayer)
Performed by Raymond Pinto
Organized by Serubiri Moses
Video & Lighting Director: Glen Fogel
Production Manager & Camera: Jordan Strafer
Audio & Video Engineer: Lazar Bozic
Video Premiere upcoming on Participant After Dark starting January 17, 2021
JOE IS JOE
a reading performance from Joe Westmoreland’s 2001 classic novel Tramps Like Us, hosted by Eileen Myles and Tom Cole, with special guests: Brontez Purnell, Erin Kimmel, Samuel Delany, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Tony Stinkmetal, Lori E. Seid, Ryan McGinley, Johanna Fateman, Roberta Colindrez, and with music by Anohni
Jordan Strafer in dialogue with Darla Migan
Jonathan Berger, An Introduction to Nameless Love
Co-commissioned and co-presented with the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
The Most Important Moments in Art in 2020 in The New York Times
Johanna Fateman's Best of 2020 in Artforum
Thomas J. Lax's Best of 2020 in Artforum
Andrea K. Scott in The New Yorker
Jerry Saltz Best of 2020 in New York Magazine
Roberta Smith in The New York Times
Evan Moffitt in Frieze
Abraham Adams in Artforum
Emily Steer in Elephant
Brienne Walsh in Forbes
Ksenia Soboleva in The Brooklyn Rail
Gabriella Angeleti and Wallace Ludel for The Art Newspaper
Stephanie Simon with Spectrum News NY 1
VAGINAL DAVIS PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
DJ set by: April Hunt
Welcome by our host: Justin Vivian Bond
Toast to our outgoing Board President Jacqueline Humphries by:
Lia Gangitano and Jeffrey Gibson
Presidential Acceptance Poem for Participant Inc
by our incoming Board President: Vaginal Davis
Followed by remarks, performance and video interludes by: Jonathan Berger with Michael Stipe, Baseera Khan, Susanne Sachsse, Sofia Moreno, Charles Atlas, Glendalys Medina, CHRISTEENE, Narcissister, Ron Athey, and a closing astrological forecast by Constantina Zavitsanos and Tourmaline.
ASL Interpretation: Candace Davider
Technical Director: Glen Fogel
Cameras and video tech: Lazar Bozic and Jordan Strafer
CHRISTEENE
LIVE VIRTUAL SHOW AND VIDEO RELEASE
In October 2020, we launched PARTICIPANT AFTER DARK, a virtual performance, screening, and event space with a full-length live performance by the artist labeled "CHRISTEENE" in anticipation of a worldwide viral release of their new music video NIGHT WINDOW directed by PJ Raval and presented by Barrett Barrera Projects. Performed at Coffey Street Studio in Red Hook BK, Principal Designer Guy Smith of Free Radical Design Group Inc on sound, lighting, cameras, and live-stream with Technical Director Glen Fogel.
The site hosts artist projects commissioned specifically for the AFTER DARK web platform and remote viewing. PARTICIPANT invited artist Glen Fogel to design and develop AFTER DARK. Artists will work with Fogel through the Fall/Spring 2020-21 season, inhabiting the site and fully modifying it for their projects' specific needs. AFTER DARK is conceived of as a blank slate, removing as much institutional framework as possible. The site will only present current projects, and will often go ’dark’ in between events.
CONTEXT-CON
An online book launch (in the form of a Comic Con) event celebrating Alexandro Segade's graphic novel The Context, published by Primary Information. Co-hosted by Human Resources, Los Angeles. Interpreting The Context’s superheroes, special guests include: Ei Arakawa as Drives; Jennifer Doyle as The Body; Jonah Groeneboer as Form; Mary Kelly as Cathexis; Jennifer Moon as Barelife; Tavia Nyong’o as Objector; and David Velasco as Biopower; followed by Alexandro Segade in conversation with scholar andré Carrington; and live drawing with graphic novelist Luciano Vecchio.
Divas nos Queremos
A conversation with Sofia Moreno, KJ Freeman, and Laura Brown
Co-hosted by HOUSING NY
See Terremoto
Shrine: DJ Set, Poetry Reading, Public Discussion
Raymond Pinto, Serubiri Moses, Pamela Sneed, Jaime Shearn Coan, and Kojo Abudu; an evening of commemorations dedicated to Assotto Saint and Rotimi Fani-Kayode, conceived as a platform for re-memory and revisiting 1980s sexually dissident history in NYC.
Monday, December 28, 2020
SICHTBARES UND UNSICHTBARES IN DER EUROPÄISCHEN LANDSCHAFT
In Los Ang in the 1980’s there were two distinct sex cults that flourished in the post punk cosmos. The first was the notorious Godz, led by a charismatic Australian cyber punk looking man named Damian of the O-men. Damian was very striking, muscular and had quite an influence on a number of Hollywood punky boys with his group that operated out of a gallery space called X=Art in West Hollywood, North of Santa Monica Blvd at San Vicente.
I attended a lot of that particular galleries events, as they were part of a circuit of independent galleries, performance and project spaces that were similar to my Hag Gallery. My home gallery Hag, with the subtitle: small, contemporary, haggard was somewhat of a first at that time, so I received a lot of party and “eventa” invites.
I even had a short fling with an artist who performed regularly at X=Art who called himself “Miracle!”. I can’t remember the exact spelling of his name, it may have had a “K” in it instead of a “C”. He was a wiry ginger haired character with a giant floppy of a penis who favoured wearing harem pants and had his hair shaved on the sides, but featured a long braided tail acted as his calling card.
In those years I lied about my age regularly getting a kick appearing to be years younger then I actually was. So if I was really 19 I would say I was 14, and an emancipated minor.
“Miracle!” was in his late twenties, and I found out later only chased after jailbait boys.Years later he wound up murdered in prison, but that’s a story for another time.
Getting back to Godz. All the boys in the Godz sex cult had the word “Godz” tattooed in the inside of their lower lip. Damian their leader was always very nice and respectful with me, and never tried his hypnotic sex majick mojo--- not that it would have worked on a black lady—we aren’t that needy, readily looking for acceptance.
Damian wound up dead of Mrs. Aids in the early 1990s but years after his passing I would occasionally run into men with the Godz tattoo. I think the handsome and extremely well endowed hairdresser Craig Pzadoris had been a member of Godz when he was young. Later Craig became involved in a strange S&M laden relationship with the artist Richard Hawkins which had some Godz overtones to it. I had nicknamed Craig "Pia Pzadorable" when he use to go out with the late milliner Richard Wanda, "The Man" and shared a Silverlake house with my former collaborator Quasi O'Shea of Amoeba Records & Filmworks. The last thing I heard about Craig was that he moved to San Francisco from Los Angeles and gave up his successful hair styling career to become a chef. Craig was such a golden child, tall, broad shouldered with dark, brooding Heathcliff good looks.
The other sex cult involved Perry Farrell of the alternative music group Jane’s Addiction and Lollapalooza Concert Festival. After Perry’s band Psi Com broke up and before he started Jane’s Addiction he lived in a big craftsman house on Wilton Place that was Hancock Park adjacent. In the house lived Perry his many girlfriends and boyfriends that included the much younger boys that would form the nuclei of Jane’s Addiction namely Stephen Perkins, Eric Avery and Dave Novarro. Perry has a dinosaur penis and a lean tight bod, and had a way of looking at a person and making them immediately feel very connected to him. I met Perry through his Orange County girlfriend Xiola Blue who was a smart and stylish teenage girl from a posh international pharmaceuticals family like or probably was The Sacklers.
It's been so long now I don't really remember.
I certainly thought that Perry was sexy, but I could never fancy a white dude sporting long and ungainly dreads. Only certain black people can get away with that look.
My art band The Afro Sisters and Jane’s Addiction performed together often at clubs like Theoretical and Silverlake/Echo Park and Downtown LA parties. I saw first hand Perry’s sexual prowess over multitudes of fans and supporters. He certainly had that guru affect. When Perry was in the band Psi Com he lived off of Melrose Avenue and Vine Street near these tiny little court apartments that looked like ramshackle huts near the famous club “The Grandia Room” where the Rhythm Lounge held court. This wasn’t far from the trendy coffee shop of Dora, an eccentric Cuban lady who was gifted a solid gold Cadillac by Elvis Presley in the 1960s.
Perry Farrell’s sex cult was less obvious then Damian’s but it was more powerful and far reaching as it encompassed both queers and straights.
I attended a lot of that particular galleries events, as they were part of a circuit of independent galleries, performance and project spaces that were similar to my Hag Gallery. My home gallery Hag, with the subtitle: small, contemporary, haggard was somewhat of a first at that time, so I received a lot of party and “eventa” invites.
I even had a short fling with an artist who performed regularly at X=Art who called himself “Miracle!”. I can’t remember the exact spelling of his name, it may have had a “K” in it instead of a “C”. He was a wiry ginger haired character with a giant floppy of a penis who favoured wearing harem pants and had his hair shaved on the sides, but featured a long braided tail acted as his calling card.
In those years I lied about my age regularly getting a kick appearing to be years younger then I actually was. So if I was really 19 I would say I was 14, and an emancipated minor.
“Miracle!” was in his late twenties, and I found out later only chased after jailbait boys.Years later he wound up murdered in prison, but that’s a story for another time.
Getting back to Godz. All the boys in the Godz sex cult had the word “Godz” tattooed in the inside of their lower lip. Damian their leader was always very nice and respectful with me, and never tried his hypnotic sex majick mojo--- not that it would have worked on a black lady—we aren’t that needy, readily looking for acceptance.
Damian wound up dead of Mrs. Aids in the early 1990s but years after his passing I would occasionally run into men with the Godz tattoo. I think the handsome and extremely well endowed hairdresser Craig Pzadoris had been a member of Godz when he was young. Later Craig became involved in a strange S&M laden relationship with the artist Richard Hawkins which had some Godz overtones to it. I had nicknamed Craig "Pia Pzadorable" when he use to go out with the late milliner Richard Wanda, "The Man" and shared a Silverlake house with my former collaborator Quasi O'Shea of Amoeba Records & Filmworks. The last thing I heard about Craig was that he moved to San Francisco from Los Angeles and gave up his successful hair styling career to become a chef. Craig was such a golden child, tall, broad shouldered with dark, brooding Heathcliff good looks.
The other sex cult involved Perry Farrell of the alternative music group Jane’s Addiction and Lollapalooza Concert Festival. After Perry’s band Psi Com broke up and before he started Jane’s Addiction he lived in a big craftsman house on Wilton Place that was Hancock Park adjacent. In the house lived Perry his many girlfriends and boyfriends that included the much younger boys that would form the nuclei of Jane’s Addiction namely Stephen Perkins, Eric Avery and Dave Novarro. Perry has a dinosaur penis and a lean tight bod, and had a way of looking at a person and making them immediately feel very connected to him. I met Perry through his Orange County girlfriend Xiola Blue who was a smart and stylish teenage girl from a posh international pharmaceuticals family like or probably was The Sacklers.
It's been so long now I don't really remember.
I certainly thought that Perry was sexy, but I could never fancy a white dude sporting long and ungainly dreads. Only certain black people can get away with that look.
My art band The Afro Sisters and Jane’s Addiction performed together often at clubs like Theoretical and Silverlake/Echo Park and Downtown LA parties. I saw first hand Perry’s sexual prowess over multitudes of fans and supporters. He certainly had that guru affect. When Perry was in the band Psi Com he lived off of Melrose Avenue and Vine Street near these tiny little court apartments that looked like ramshackle huts near the famous club “The Grandia Room” where the Rhythm Lounge held court. This wasn’t far from the trendy coffee shop of Dora, an eccentric Cuban lady who was gifted a solid gold Cadillac by Elvis Presley in the 1960s.
Perry Farrell’s sex cult was less obvious then Damian’s but it was more powerful and far reaching as it encompassed both queers and straights.
Friday, December 25, 2020
DER KLEINE GRENZVERKEHR
Just heard the sad news that Hal Negro(Marty Goldberg) of The Satintones died. He was such a lovely man who was quite the fixture in the Los Angeles punk and post punk scene. It seems like I am losing a lot of people from my generation. Ron Athey also relayed to me that artist Liz Young also passed-what a talent.
*
The Linda Lindas are a teenage girl band from LA featuring two LatinX sisters, a cousin and a close friend. Their music is very power poppy and punk spirited. Thank you sister of the clothe Alice Bag for turning me on to them, I haven’t DJaned since the Feminist Film Festival in Frankfurt in November, 2019 so who knows when I will get another opportunity to be behind the mighty wheels of steel but if i do I am adding the Linda Lindas to my play list.
*
Am i going bonkers in my senile dottage? I’ll let you all out there be the judge of that, but I find myself really attracted to the disgraced writer James Fry. For some reason I am obsessed with smelling his armpits. He looks like he has a very strong body odour.
The hot new teen sensations The Linda Lindas from Los Angeles
*
The Linda Lindas are a teenage girl band from LA featuring two LatinX sisters, a cousin and a close friend. Their music is very power poppy and punk spirited. Thank you sister of the clothe Alice Bag for turning me on to them, I haven’t DJaned since the Feminist Film Festival in Frankfurt in November, 2019 so who knows when I will get another opportunity to be behind the mighty wheels of steel but if i do I am adding the Linda Lindas to my play list.
*
Am i going bonkers in my senile dottage? I’ll let you all out there be the judge of that, but I find myself really attracted to the disgraced writer James Fry. For some reason I am obsessed with smelling his armpits. He looks like he has a very strong body odour.
The hot new teen sensations The Linda Lindas from Los Angeles
James Fry pubic hair braganza
In doing my winter solstice cleaning found some photos that the legendary artist Don Bachardy sent of a few portraits he did of me back in the early aughts at his Aunt Monica compound. Mr. Bachardy is such a delightful man, and still quite sexy with a sly almost teenage like fashion sense. I first met Don Bachardy and his late lover Christopher Isherwood through Michael Reynolds and his older lover Walter who were neighbors of the famous couple. This was back in the early 1980s. Michael and Walter were big fans of The Afro Sisters and would come to all of our shows. Michael had been involved with Walter since he was 15 years old. The last time i saw Don Bachardy in Berlin about ten years ago he said that Michael has now passed away.
And the latest event from Participant After Dark in New York City. Donate, Donate and then after that Donate. Its an easy rule for kids to follow.
JOE IS JOE
a reading performance from Joe Westmoreland’s 2001 classic novel
Tramps Like Us
Sunday, December 27, 2020 at 6pm EST
participantafterdark.art
Hosted by Eileen Myles and Tom Cole
With special guests:
Brontez Purnell
Erin Kimmel
Samuel Delaney
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
Tony Stinkmetal
Lori E. Seid
Ryan McGinley
Johanna Fateman
Roberta Colindrez
and with music by Anohni
Tramps Like Us tells a virtually unknown saga of Joe and his buddies and girlfriends on a queer journey through 70s and 80s United States. Tramps lifts the lid on that increasingly utopian analog and mystic searching party time (sweet punk psychedelia) fueled by a flight from repressive family violence dropping us off at the traumatic edge of the early AIDS crisis. Joe banishes the cliché of the 70s and 80s by telling a really deep and felt account of sex and friendship before anyone or anything told us to stop.
PARTICIPANT AFTER DARK is a virtual performance, screening, and event space launched by PARTICIPANT INC in October 2020. The site hosts artist projects commissioned specifically for the AFTER DARK web platform and remote viewing. PARTICIPANT invited artist Glen Fogel to design and develop AFTER DARK. Artists will work with Fogel through the Fall/Spring 2020-21 season, inhabiting the site and fully modifying it for their projects' specific needs. AFTER DARK is conceived of as a blank slate, removing as much institutional framework as possible. The site will only present current projects, and will often go ’dark’ in between events.
In doing my winter solstice cleaning found some photos that the legendary artist Don Bachardy sent of a few portraits he did of me back in the early aughts at his Aunt Monica compound. Mr. Bachardy is such a delightful man, and still quite sexy with a sly almost teenage like fashion sense. I first met Don Bachardy and his late lover Christopher Isherwood through Michael Reynolds and his older lover Walter who were neighbors of the famous couple. This was back in the early 1980s. Michael and Walter were big fans of The Afro Sisters and would come to all of our shows. Michael had been involved with Walter since he was 15 years old. The last time i saw Don Bachardy in Berlin about ten years ago he said that Michael has now passed away.
And the latest event from Participant After Dark in New York City. Donate, Donate and then after that Donate. Its an easy rule for kids to follow.
JOE IS JOE
a reading performance from Joe Westmoreland’s 2001 classic novel
Tramps Like Us
Sunday, December 27, 2020 at 6pm EST
participantafterdark.art
Hosted by Eileen Myles and Tom Cole
With special guests:
Brontez Purnell
Erin Kimmel
Samuel Delaney
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
Tony Stinkmetal
Lori E. Seid
Ryan McGinley
Johanna Fateman
Roberta Colindrez
and with music by Anohni
Tramps Like Us tells a virtually unknown saga of Joe and his buddies and girlfriends on a queer journey through 70s and 80s United States. Tramps lifts the lid on that increasingly utopian analog and mystic searching party time (sweet punk psychedelia) fueled by a flight from repressive family violence dropping us off at the traumatic edge of the early AIDS crisis. Joe banishes the cliché of the 70s and 80s by telling a really deep and felt account of sex and friendship before anyone or anything told us to stop.
PARTICIPANT AFTER DARK is a virtual performance, screening, and event space launched by PARTICIPANT INC in October 2020. The site hosts artist projects commissioned specifically for the AFTER DARK web platform and remote viewing. PARTICIPANT invited artist Glen Fogel to design and develop AFTER DARK. Artists will work with Fogel through the Fall/Spring 2020-21 season, inhabiting the site and fully modifying it for their projects' specific needs. AFTER DARK is conceived of as a blank slate, removing as much institutional framework as possible. The site will only present current projects, and will often go ’dark’ in between events.
Saturday, December 19, 2020
TOTE HOSE
Berlin is in the midst of the second Pandora Pandemic lockdown where they actually cancelled Christmas. Smart move. No one needs those icky Christmas markets or that nasty warm gluhwein or mulled wine. Germany is a secular country anyway and just pays lip service to the Catholics and Evangelisches who still hold sway over the country because of tradition. The religiousity is stronger in Southern Germany.
You know things were getting deep when Chancellor Angela "with a hard G'" Merkel got all emotional on national television. I don't have any attachment to the adopted Pagan holiday of Christmas. I didn't grow up celebrating Christmas, Easter or any holidays for that matter, and I don't celebrate birthdays either as my mother became taken with the Jehovah's Witness sect back in the mid 1950s though as a natural born rebel she wasn't consistent in following the Witnesses dogma. I've only had a birthday cake twice in my life. The first was given to me by Robert Lopez aka: El Vez, the Mexican Elvis in the mid 1990's and the second by my gorgeous Berlin gallerist Isabella Bortolozzi early this year.
I am so glad I never got taken in by the Christmas consumerism scam. I didn't see the Merkel broadcast as I don't have a TV set, but i certainly heard about it.
Mother Nature has finally spoken and she says that the next serious pandemic will be an extraterrestrial virus emanating from the extremely dry and rank pussy of one offensive elderly lady known as Vaginal Davis Jr.Which reminds me of Dirk Jager the Titan Media German porn studlet with the penis head shaped like the tip of a Concord Jet. The Belgian artist Christophe Chemin use to be buds with Mr. Jager who is very tiny but extremely muscular in that way that all blue movie kingpins adopt via steroid rage. Herr Jager is a classically handsome man, and I believe is most likely retired from the video screen, as he is a middle aged man now. I'll always remember back in 2007 at the premiere party at the WAU Cafe for CHEAP Blacky at HAU 2 that Dirk Jager made a beeline for Assaf Hochman the humpy dark haired Israeli dancer whose very voluptuous tight tuche was displayed quite provocatively on the stage. The two dimunitive men made a date, but discovered they were both Greek active and Assaf wouldn't even let poor Dirk get a whiff of lest allow him the privilege of devouring his tasty treat garden salad.
Dirk Jager and the might famed Concord shaped appendage.
*
My incredibly talented ex-student Maria Norrman is the rococo voice of her generation. Maria was one of my top students from my 2010 seminar at Lund University's Malmö Art Academy in Sweden. Her thrilling drag persona Millennium Star has been popping up all over Scandia. The delightfully soft spoken Ms. Norrman is as beautiful on the inside as she is outside and super seven hundred prolific. You will be hearing a lot about her in the coming months. Mark my Jack Smithian flaming verbiage.
Check out her upcoming events here:
PORTALS
An online event of performance art to camera.
24 December 2020 – 1 January 2021
Eleanor Lawler (IRL) Rae Goodwin (USA), Maria Norrman (SWE), Quilla Constance (UK), Franics Fay (IRL), Katherine Nolan (IRL) John Freeman (USA)
To be viewed on the social media pages of:
Livestock Live Art and MART Gallery and Studios, Dublin, Ireland
https://www.facebook.com/Mart.Gallery.Studios
http://livestock-art.com/
Livestock invites you to pass through Portals, an on-line event of performance art to camera.
It seems like we are existing betwixt and between a past that is clearly gone and a future that is still uncertain.The current crisis is likely to prolong this undecided state for many of us. While frustrating at times, this inbetweenness also has potential as a moment in which we can imagine change. As Bill Bridges has written in Transitions, “We need not feel defensive about this apparently unproductive time-out at turning points in our lives … In the apparently aimless activity of our time alone, we are doing important inner business.”
This event presents responses from Irish and International artists that seek to reimagine the covid moment as a portal to something new. They will be screened online to lead us out of 2020 and into the new year that awaits.
Maria Norrmans drag persona Millennium Star embodies the current state of in-between, manifesting as a three headed triple deity figure. Millennium Star looks into the camera, with an ambiguous gaze. Their facial expressions and eye movements deal with the current state of our time, numbness, content, bored, forward gazing all at the same time.
Maria Norrman (b. 1987 in Sweden, lives and works in Malmö, Sweden) is an artist, curator and drag performer (Millennium Star.) Norrmans work explores our fantasies and images regarding history, gender and sexuality. Her main mediums are video and photography in combination with costume making and clothing, performance and installation.
www.marianorrman.net
Instagram: c.maria.norrman
Upcoming in 2021:
April
Jane Avril
Gallery Ping-Pong, Malmö, Sweden
A project 17 years in the making will be exhibited for the first time at Gallery Ping-Pong in April. Jane Avril is a project about my relation to French dance performer Jane Avril (1868-1943) who was a friend of the artist Toulouse-Lautrec. From the very first time I saw images and photos of her in 2003, I’ve felt connected to her personality and artistic expression.
The exhibition will include photographs, video, text and installations.
TBA
Drag Queen Story Hour
Millennium Star has been invited by the grand dames of Malmöian storytelling, Lady Busty and Miss Shameless, to read norm creative stories for children with them. Miss Rona, the virus on everyone's lips, will decide when this can be possible.
TBA
Residency at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris
Miss Rona (the covid-19 virus) strikes yet again - who knows when I can make this residency happen, but at least it's decided and there to grab once one can travel and move safely again.
Maria Norrman is Millennium Star
Thom of Elfland
Thom of Elfland
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
DAS LICHT FLUTET DEM GIEBELFELD ÜBER DER TÜR
Billy Miller of Straight to Hell Magazine, also known as the Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts, is one of the most fascinating people in the known world. Billy and I go way back and I absolutely adore him. He is 63 years old now and is still a major hotnik and boychild of the promised land. In his radiant youth he was a prized possession of the older men lucky enough to drink from his goldenen cupeth. He was heralded as one of the most coveted teenage concubines of the upper mid west during the 1970s. No one makes me howl louder and longer then Mr. Billy Miller. Billy is a guaranteed laugh riot who will leave you in veratible stitches bended in half. He's also a walking Encyclopedia Brown of arcane facts and figures. Only recently have we been shooting the proverbial breeze regularly on the telephone. Not many people like to chit chat on the phone these days. Those I gab with frequently are my longtime sister girlfriend Glen Meadmore aka: Penny Feathers of the Hot Horny and Born Again Kuntry Band, Karen Maria Jose Hector Martinez the Azteca Warrior top supporter of the Malibu Colony Surfer Community and Daniel Hendrickson, the Jewish Muzlim of Kollektiv CHEAP who also lives in Berlin. My infrequent klatch pals are my ex student Atte Pentinen the Finish young artist who was in my performance art seminar at the Kunst Universität Linz and Michele "Meesh" Mills the three time Emmy Award winning reality TV producer with RuPaul's Drag Strip. Meesh has such a busy insanely crazed schedule its rare that we get to talk, but when we do its very juicy and completely epic. Meesh use to be one of my rotating guardians of the gate at my performance art speakeasy Brickstops at the Parlour Club 2002-05 in the Russian Quartier of Hollywood. Meesh also was in Cholita, the Female Menudo and designed costumes, did makeup and helped edit a lot of my many video film projects from the last century. Now that Michele has broken into the industrial entertainment complex a lot of people try to hit her up for contacts and schmoozing. Of course its people who would have never given her the time of day in her pre TV success days. Well thats the very nature of the showbiz hactory eh?
But getting back to little Billy Miller, the other evening he calls me out of the blue and I start boring him with details about all my doctor appointments with rheuma specialists and orthopaedics and what not when Billy goes on about some gay bars in Detroit. One place in particular was a pub that was staffed by elderly women that was both terribly formal and downright sleezy if there could be such a mix. Half of the male clientele were middle aged men, the rest randy cornfed teenage boys. I can't go into specifics as its enough to make a jaded Madam blush suppositories, and I don't want to be accused of corrupting anyone's morals. Billy and his doctor husband are moving from New York to a small college town in Pennsylvania, but something tells me that Billy will find some scandalous adventures in his new hamlet home.
*
Karen Maria Jose Hector Martinez the Azteca Warrior and great lover of Pepperdine Water Polo Team
Judy LaBruce of Toronto Canada
The genius genius of Kembra
Daytime Glamour
This note I just received from Judy LaBruce the Canadian auteur and Supreme Southern Death Cultist:
Hey Kids!! Tis the Season!!! My new "Death Book" from Baron Books makes the perfect holiday gift! Because nothing says Christmas like death!! Or just add it to your book collection! Destined to become a collector's item! Now shipping!!! Click below and order today!!! xxx BLAB
DEATH BOOK | baron-magazine
*
Oh and this from the beauteous Lia Gangitano and her art gang at Participant Inc. in New York City
Untitled (Unintelligible ██████ ██████)
Organized by Serubiri Moses
Performed by Raymond Pinto
Friday, December 18, 2020, 7pm EST
participantafterdark.art
This performance will include open captioning
Untitled (Unintelligible ██████ ██████) combines research and performance—specifically drawing from archives and movement study—to enact processes of memory and commemoration around Black and sexually dissident experiences, past and present. The project takes two major figures, Assotto Saint (born Les Cayes, Haiti, 1957—died, New York, US, 1994) and Rotimi Fani-Kayode (born Nigeria 1955—died London, UK, 1989) as a starting point, and seeks to present an alternative art, literature, and performance history. The project is organized by Serubiri Moses and performed by Raymond Pinto, and includes research by both.
Assotto Saint and Rotimi Fani-Kayode were friends. They met in New York in the early 1980s. They exchanged letters, which have been archived at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. We know that Fani-Kayode photographed Saint, and that Saint went to London to perform an experimental theater work. Their friendship conjures meanings of solidarity across the Atlantic. The emphasis on Haitian Vodou, and Ifa Divination in each of their practices alerts us to their quotidian practice and wish for survival.
Research for this project, which started in 2019, primarily took place in New York, through the archives at the Schomburg Center, and through various libraries in the city such as the Library for the Performing Arts. It also included consultation with primary texts such as Saint's collection of poems Stations (1989) and Fani-Kayode's book of photographs Black Male/White Male (1988). The movement study was based on consultations with primary sources such as Dances of Haiti by Katherine Dunham, among others. Research on diasporic religion and sexuality included: Roberto Strongman's Queering Black Atlantic Religions (2019).
Specific figures of the 1980s gay and lesbian movement in New York have been elided by various historiographies of the time period. This alerts us to the necessity of commemoration in the present. However, a major question that is asked by South African art historian Ashraf Jamal is, "But, how to commemorate?" Avoiding a general commemoration of the ‘80s gay and lesbian movement with its official histories, the project pursues an artistic reflection rooted in contemporary art practices, establishing a space for memory. It aims at highlighting Saint and Fani-Kayode’s distinct approaches to notions of Black diasporic spirituality as well as African spirituality in relation to sexual dissidence. It also aims at enacting the illegible and the non-linear.
Untitled (Unintelligible ██████ ██████) follows the online event, Shrine: DJ Set, Poetry Reading, and Public Discussion, held in July 2020, which brought together curators and artists to celebrate Saint and Fani-Kayode. The speakers included: Raymond Pinto, Pamela Sneed, Jaime Shearn Coan, and Kojo Abudu, and the event was moderated by Serubiri Moses.
PARTICIPANT AFTER DARK is a virtual performance, screening, and event space launched by PARTICIPANT INC in October 2020. The site hosts artist projects commissioned specifically for the AFTER DARK web platform and remote viewing. PARTICIPANT invited artist Glen Fogel to design and develop AFTER DARK. Artists will work with Fogel through the Fall/Spring 2020-21 season, inhabiting the site and fully modifying it for their projects' specific needs. AFTER DARK is conceived of as a blank slate, removing as much institutional framework as possible. The site will only present current projects, and will often go ’dark’ in between events.
*
That other woman of New York actresstocracy Kembra Pfahler is in the midst of some magnificent rumblings with her London Gallery Emalin. Kembra and I met awhile back online via some weirdo brainwaves that resulted in an unhinged Bitchcraft conversation.
https://emalin.co.uk/stories/story/kembra-pfahler-the-show-must-not-go-on
But getting back to little Billy Miller, the other evening he calls me out of the blue and I start boring him with details about all my doctor appointments with rheuma specialists and orthopaedics and what not when Billy goes on about some gay bars in Detroit. One place in particular was a pub that was staffed by elderly women that was both terribly formal and downright sleezy if there could be such a mix. Half of the male clientele were middle aged men, the rest randy cornfed teenage boys. I can't go into specifics as its enough to make a jaded Madam blush suppositories, and I don't want to be accused of corrupting anyone's morals. Billy and his doctor husband are moving from New York to a small college town in Pennsylvania, but something tells me that Billy will find some scandalous adventures in his new hamlet home.
*
Karen Maria Jose Hector Martinez the Azteca Warrior and great lover of Pepperdine Water Polo Team
Judy LaBruce of Toronto CanadaThe genius genius of KembraDaytime GlamourThis note I just received from Judy LaBruce the Canadian auteur and Supreme Southern Death Cultist:
Hey Kids!! Tis the Season!!! My new "Death Book" from Baron Books makes the perfect holiday gift! Because nothing says Christmas like death!! Or just add it to your book collection! Destined to become a collector's item! Now shipping!!! Click below and order today!!! xxx BLAB
DEATH BOOK | baron-magazine
*
Oh and this from the beauteous Lia Gangitano and her art gang at Participant Inc. in New York City
Untitled (Unintelligible ██████ ██████)
Organized by Serubiri Moses
Performed by Raymond Pinto
Friday, December 18, 2020, 7pm EST
participantafterdark.art
This performance will include open captioning
Untitled (Unintelligible ██████ ██████) combines research and performance—specifically drawing from archives and movement study—to enact processes of memory and commemoration around Black and sexually dissident experiences, past and present. The project takes two major figures, Assotto Saint (born Les Cayes, Haiti, 1957—died, New York, US, 1994) and Rotimi Fani-Kayode (born Nigeria 1955—died London, UK, 1989) as a starting point, and seeks to present an alternative art, literature, and performance history. The project is organized by Serubiri Moses and performed by Raymond Pinto, and includes research by both.
Assotto Saint and Rotimi Fani-Kayode were friends. They met in New York in the early 1980s. They exchanged letters, which have been archived at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. We know that Fani-Kayode photographed Saint, and that Saint went to London to perform an experimental theater work. Their friendship conjures meanings of solidarity across the Atlantic. The emphasis on Haitian Vodou, and Ifa Divination in each of their practices alerts us to their quotidian practice and wish for survival.
Research for this project, which started in 2019, primarily took place in New York, through the archives at the Schomburg Center, and through various libraries in the city such as the Library for the Performing Arts. It also included consultation with primary texts such as Saint's collection of poems Stations (1989) and Fani-Kayode's book of photographs Black Male/White Male (1988). The movement study was based on consultations with primary sources such as Dances of Haiti by Katherine Dunham, among others. Research on diasporic religion and sexuality included: Roberto Strongman's Queering Black Atlantic Religions (2019).
Specific figures of the 1980s gay and lesbian movement in New York have been elided by various historiographies of the time period. This alerts us to the necessity of commemoration in the present. However, a major question that is asked by South African art historian Ashraf Jamal is, "But, how to commemorate?" Avoiding a general commemoration of the ‘80s gay and lesbian movement with its official histories, the project pursues an artistic reflection rooted in contemporary art practices, establishing a space for memory. It aims at highlighting Saint and Fani-Kayode’s distinct approaches to notions of Black diasporic spirituality as well as African spirituality in relation to sexual dissidence. It also aims at enacting the illegible and the non-linear.
Untitled (Unintelligible ██████ ██████) follows the online event, Shrine: DJ Set, Poetry Reading, and Public Discussion, held in July 2020, which brought together curators and artists to celebrate Saint and Fani-Kayode. The speakers included: Raymond Pinto, Pamela Sneed, Jaime Shearn Coan, and Kojo Abudu, and the event was moderated by Serubiri Moses.
PARTICIPANT AFTER DARK is a virtual performance, screening, and event space launched by PARTICIPANT INC in October 2020. The site hosts artist projects commissioned specifically for the AFTER DARK web platform and remote viewing. PARTICIPANT invited artist Glen Fogel to design and develop AFTER DARK. Artists will work with Fogel through the Fall/Spring 2020-21 season, inhabiting the site and fully modifying it for their projects' specific needs. AFTER DARK is conceived of as a blank slate, removing as much institutional framework as possible. The site will only present current projects, and will often go ’dark’ in between events.
*
That other woman of New York actresstocracy Kembra Pfahler is in the midst of some magnificent rumblings with her London Gallery Emalin. Kembra and I met awhile back online via some weirdo brainwaves that resulted in an unhinged Bitchcraft conversation.
https://emalin.co.uk/stories/story/kembra-pfahler-the-show-must-not-go-on
Sunday, December 13, 2020
MILKING TAG BERLIN GEILEN TYPEN DAS SPERMA RAUSG
Received a delicious packet from New York based writer and bon vivant Max Steele. Mr. Steele is a young, lean sex machine of a radiant youthquaker who I first met when he appeared on my talkshow/installation Vaginal Davis is Speaking From the Diaphragm back in 2010 at PS122 in Manhattan. Max and I were able to hang out a few times when he was visiting Berlin and he is mega charming and an utter delight. So excited to receive his latest chapbook of poetry called Epsilon on one side and Valence on the other. Max has a very unique way of expressing himself and I expect big things from him.
*
This just in from Sherry Milner and Ernie Larson two of the world's most enigmatic artists:
FILM AT REDCAT PRESENT
_____Mon Dec 14 | 8:00 PM |
_____ONLINE
_____Jack H. Skirball Series
_____$10 [members $8]
_____To get tickets, visit: The Clamor of the Excluded
The Clamor of the Excluded
Seven films, six decades, seven countries
Voices and visions of peoples on the edge and over the edge
Co-curated by Sherry Millner and Ernie Larsen
Starting with a first presentation at the 2008 Oberhausen Film Festival, Sherry Millner and Ernest Larsen—artists, filmmakers, writers, educators, troublemakers—have curated and exhibited multiple programs of short films that critically and/or actively represent resistance to power all over the world. Carried out over decades as the project Disruptive Film, the duo’s groundbreaking research demonstrates not only the variety of everyday resistance strategies, but also a surprising diversity of experimental approaches to short-form nonfiction media. Their second selection for REDCAT (since their presentation in 2016) includes Crowded by Alonzo Crawford (1978), shot in a Baltimore prison, Xochimilco 1914 by Los Viumasters (2010) from Mexico, Crude Living on Oil in Syria by Rozh Ahmad (2014), and their own How Do Animals and Plants Live? (2020) shot in a destroyed migrant squat in Greece.
In person: co-curators Sherry Millner and Ernie Larsen
“Demonstrates the remarkable power of film to engage, move, provoke and contend.” - Bill Nichols
“One of the most notable aspects of the series is that it refreshingly views political documentary and experimental films as located on the same continuum.” - Chris Robé, Pop Matters
“A visual demonstration of the powers of film. Such a collection of rare and precious items from many times, places and conflict situations, not only provides a strong perspective about film history, but also transmits to us the practical energy to struggle with our present injustices.” - Nicole Brenez
“The love of cinema also means knowing what to do with images that are really missing.” - Serge Daney
Program
_____Alonzo Crawford: Crowded
_____1978, 10 min, USA
When the inmates of the grotesquely overcrowded Baltimore City Jail sued the city and state, African-American director Alonzo Crawford, on a budget of $400, documented conditions inside - and on the strength of that unyieldingly attentive visual evidence, the prisoners won.
_____Aryan Kaganof: Threnody for the Victims of Marikana
_____2014, 27 min, South Africa
On August 16, 2012 the South African Police opened fire on a crowd of striking platinum workers, killing 34 and injuring 78. This three-part film uses symphonic and other music, found footage, theoretical analysis, and irony to arrive at a new understanding, both philosophical and visceral, of how the massacre could have happened - under a government ruled by the once-revolutionary ANC.
_____Millner & Larsen: How Do Animals and Plants Live?
_____2020, 29 min, USA
While inquiring into the forcible eviction and immediate demolition of the self-organized anarchist-supported migrant squat Orfanotrofeio in Thessaloniki, Greece, in July 2016, this experimental video essay extrapolates on the proposition that “no one is illegal” in the renewed if fragile context of the common.
_____Rozh Ahmad: Crude Living on Oil in Syria
_____2014, 20 min, Syria
The journalist Rozh Ahmad - at a ramshackle roadside refinery - relentlessly portrays the terrifying despoliation of a village, a people, and a landscape all at once, caught in the pincers of an endless war.
_____Kamran Shirdel: Tehran is the Capital of Iran
_____1966, 17.40 min, Iran
This film, censored even before it was completed, sets affecting, often harrowing images of the discarded urban poor against recitations of official reports and schoolbooks. Shirdel’s searing vision was undoubtedly seasoned by study at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. At considerable cost to his career, he inaugurated an Iranian version of neo-realism - a take-no-prisoners style of direction.
_____Zelimir Zilnik: Black Film
_____1971, 14 min, Yugoslavia
In a last-ditch gamble to “solve the homeless problem” in the workers’ state of Yugoslavia, the filmmaker invites six homeless men (ignored by the “socialist” government) into his own apartment … And lives to tell the tale.
_____Los Viumasters: Xochimilco 1914
_____2010, 4.5 min, Mexico
On the morning of December 4th, 1914, Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata met for the first time. An original stenographic record of their conversation, just hours before they took control of Mexico City, exists. A mere century later, this playful film animates the words of these revolutionary heroes and their historic repercussions.
The Filmmakers
Rozh Ahmad is a freelance journalist and videographer who reports on the Kurdish inhabited regions of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. Based in Paris, he was educated in England and has roots in Iraq’s Kurdish region.
Based in Baltimore, Alonzo Crawford, an avid proponent of the short documentary, co-founded and designed the graduate film program at Howard University. His other films include Gila Monster(2007), Sleep to Dream (2014), and The Making of Outrage (2016). The latter explores the tumultuous impact within the black community in Baltimore of the April 2015 death of young Freddie Gray while being transported in a police van.
A poet, novelist, and visual artist, as well as a prolific filmmaker, Aryan Kaganof made the first feature film shot entirely on mobile phones, SMS Sugar Man in 2007. He also founded the music research project, The African Noise Foundation.
Based in Mexico City, the animation collective Los Viumasters has produced clips and videos for rock groups, documentaries and fiction films since 2009. Xochimilco 1914 won the Best Mexican Animated Short Film Award at the 13th Guanajuato International Film Festival.
A great pioneer of Iranian cinema, Kamran Shirdel, born in 1939, is also the founder and director of the Kish International Documentary Film Festival.
Based in Novi Sad, Serbia, an innovator of hybrid cinematic forms. particularly the docudrama, Zelimir Zilnik is among the most important of the politically engaged filmmakers in Europe. He initially gained fame first within the Yugoslavian Black New Wave of the 1960s and has made dozens of films and television programs during his long career.
Note From the Curators
We have been incubating this collection of short films for decades. We saw a few of them as far back as the late 1960s. They were projected on the walls of lofts or in funky theaters on the Lower East Side of New York City. The audiences were made up of hippies, impatient radicals, artists, and troublemakers—people who, like us, believed they were going to change the world. So the collection of films we are in the process of assembling is the distillation of our lifelong engagement with the intersection between the stirring histories of struggles for freedom across the globe and the wide-ranging, often surprising, history of short-form experimental non-fiction media… an engagement both passionate and critical.
These films make propositions – or “escape routes” – from exhausted classical documentary forms. They each employ critical interventions intended to contest, resist, or imaginatively overturn repressive conditions, stale culture, the violence of the state, patriarchy, racism, the rule of global capital.
We are aiming at a gradual construction of an alternative history – a history that has at times been blocked, repressed, censored or hijacked – of short-form radical experimental non-fiction media, from 1914 up to the present. The films that we selected address radical potentiality. They ask and often answer the complex question of how political resistance can be articulated in forms that are not only appositely representative of resistance but that also embody that shape-shifting force in their own diverse historical moments and contradictions.
Today or tomorrow any and all of us are very likely to be caught up in the crossfire of our era’s global upheavals and sudden revolts. The films shown tonight offer precise and often deeply affecting visions that evoke previously underexplored potential for common understanding of these unending crises.
According to the French critic and filmmaker Jean-Louis Comolli: “Defeating or overcoming the existing order of things requires the invention of forms that are different to those serving to repress our consciousness and our movements.” The requirement to which Comolli refers should, we feel, encompass the invention of forms of life, of politics, and aesthetic forms, as an intentional project that produces the conditions through which such revolutionary change could begin to be achieved. And the invention of such forms is always experimental.
Our search for these little-known and under-valued films continues… We hope that our archeological effort, which often meant dusting off, translating, and subtitling uniquely moving films never before seen by English-speaking audiences, will prove to be as much a discovery for the spectators as they have been for us.
The Curators
Sherry Millner and Ernie Larsen collaborate on film, video, photo-text, book, curatorial and other research projects. Co-creators of the collaborative video project State of Emergency (involving 20 artists), they have also produced several situationist films, two anti-documentaries redefining criminality, and a series of semi-
autobiographical videos focusing on authoritarian structures indispensable to capital.
In 2008, at the Oberhausen Film Festival, they co-curated Border-Crossers and Trouble-Makers, ten programs that aimed to rewrite the conventional history of experimental political media. They co-curated Disruptive Film: Everyday Resistance to Power, two DVD volumes of political/experimental short-form films and videos, for Facets Media. Their photo-text projects on Vietnam and on Greece have been published in Rethinking Marxism and online in Social Textand in e-flux conversations. Their collaborative book, Capital’s Greek Cage (Autonomedia), explores the immiseration of the Greek population by the EU and the related growth of fascism.
Millner produces installations, such as The Domestic Boobytrap, which exploits U.S. army manuals to demonstrate the radical instability of domestic space, and many photomontage series, currently including No Respirator Included. Larsen writes fiction and media criticism. His most recent book The Trial Before The Trial, an account of his experiences on a Manhattan grand jury, is available from Autonomedia Press.
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My West Coast gallerist Adams & Ollman are representing a new artist that you should check out:
NOW REPRESENTING
JESSICA JACKSON HUTCHINS
Adams and Ollman is proud to announce the representation of Jessica Jackson Hutchins. Well-known for her sculptures that often situate ceramic forms and vessels on found and dissected domestic objects such as a table, piano, sofa, or cushion, Jessica Jackson Hutchins (b. 1971 in Chicago, Illinois; lives and works in Portland, Oregon) continues to explore and push materials, media, and meaning. Composed of an array of everyday objects, some found, some personal, the artist’s works are accumulations of quotidian life and mundane rituals transformed into reverential objects that are as idiosyncratic as they are familiar. The artist's ongoing engagement with materials and forms is tactile and intimate. Through touch and accretion, Hutchins celebrates the meaning and emotion of relationships, time, and language.
Hutchins has recently had solo exhibitions at Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, OH (2016); the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (2014); the Hepworth Wakefield Museum (2013); the Broad Art Museum in East Lansing, MI (2013); and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, MA (2011). Significant group exhibitions include Makeshift at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, where Hutchins first premiered her performance work; the 55th Venice Biennale, The Encyclopedic Palace (2013); and The Whitney Biennial (2010). Her work is included in the following public collections: the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Margulies Collection, Miami; and the Portland Art Museum, Portland. Hutchins holds a BA in Art History from Oberlin College and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Adams and Ollman will co-represent the artist with Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen. An exhibition with the artist is scheduled at Adams and Ollman for Fall 2021.
The muse of CHEAP Kollektiv, the wise and beautiful Miss Hedy Lamarr
I am crazy about the late actress/singer and Disney Studios legend Annette Funicello. I am also a huge fanatic of Tim Considine and Tommy Kirk who were also part of the Disney cosmos of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Considine went on to star in the TV sitcom My Three Sons while poor Tommy Kirk who was the most gifted as a young actor faltered in Hollywood after being caught engaging in homosexuality and being blacklisted. He later became a regular Jo owning a business and was much happier because of it.
Thursday, December 10, 2020
ICH KOOMME IN DEN SAAL, WEIL MICH DIE SORGE TREIBT
Ich komme in den Saal, weil mich die Sorge treibt,
Die Unruhe, die sich bei dem Anblick des ersten gedämpft hatte, ist mit dem letzen, der hier hereinging, nun von neuem ausgerochen.
The latest from the fine people of Participant Inc. with Participant After Dark. Don't forget to donate donate and then donate some more.
Jordan Strafer in dialogue with Darla Migan
Sunday, December 13, 2020, 7pm EST
participantafterdark.art
This event includes live ASL interpretation
As part of:
Jordan Strafer, No Bag
December 2, 2020 – January 10, 2021
participantafterdark.art
Jordan Strafer occupies PARTICIPANT AFTER DARK with No Bag, an interactive multi-media web-based artwork.
For my school project I took a machete and destroyed everyone’s backpacks.
I gave an incoherent speech then gave out my phone number and promised to replace the backpacks.
After it happened, I couldn’t believe I made that promise to return the backpacks.
They must have been expensive. Some may have been sentimental and irreplaceable.
Everyone would be heading home with all their books and no bag!
A fellow student tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I’m going to bang your cake in.”
“Shit,” I said, “What a stupid way to die.”
I lay on the ground, with hands outstretched, ready for my punishment. “I love you,” I said. “You’ve misunderstood me,” they said.
Jordan Strafer (b.1990, Miami, FL) is an artist, working primarily in video, based in Brooklyn, New York. She received her BFA from The New School in 2016 and her MFA from Bard College in 2019. She has participated in group exhibitions at Red Tracy, Copenhagen, (2020-21); Housing, New York (2020); SculptureCenter, New York (2020). In 2021, she will be participating in a three-person exhibition with Maryam Hoseini and Rindon Johnson at The New Museum in New York and a group exhibition at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. Her first solo exhibition will be at Participant Inc, New York in 2022.
Darla Migan is an art critic and culture worker based in New York City. She completed her Ph.D in Philosophy with a dissertation on Adrian Piper’s contributions to B/black aesthetics and will continue her research at the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2021. Darla’s essays on contemporary art and visual culture have been published in Artnet News, The Brooklyn Rail, CulturedMag, and Texte zur Kunst.
PARTICIPANT AFTER DARK is a virtual performance, screening, and event space launched by PARTICIPANT INC in October 2020. The site will host artist projects commissioned specifically for the AFTER DARK web platform and remote viewing. PARTICIPANT invited artist Glen Fogel to design and help develop AFTER DARK. Artists will work with Fogel ongoing through the Fall/Spring 2020-21 season, inhabiting the site and fully modifying it for their projects' specific needs. AFTER DARK is conceived of as a blank slate, removing as much institutional framework as possible. The site will only present current projects, and will often go ’dark’ in between events.
Access: Transcripts of audio media available in the site’s index. Strafer’s videos, sparkle and the shining include closed captioning.
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The handsome, sexy French photog lover of rock star Michael Stipe is in a group virtual exhibition that you might want to check out:
These are virtual days and this is a virtual show, but it definitely still is a London show. And I am always here for a London moment. I'm really happy to see these portraits from a couple years back join the works of this great of artists.
Enjoy the visit through the link below, and happy holidays to you and all your loved ones.
Entre Amis Trois
3 December 2020 - 31 January 2021
FrenchRiviera1988.com/entreamistrois
with works by
Christina Cushing
Thomas Dozol
Helena Foster
Seana Gavin
Tom Gidley
Simone Kennedy Doig
Samuel Levack
Jennifer Lewandowski
Nicholas Pankhurst
Giles Round
www.thomasdozol.com
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This announcement from the adorable Adham Hafez the Prince of Cairo:
Dear all,
I am very excited to share with you our latest production 'Cairo Critical Club'. Rehearsed and filmed between Berlin, New York and Cairo, the production takes cabaret into the digital realm, and rethinks of assemblies of pleasure and public conviviality through the history of the KitKat Club.
To register and watch the performances online, please follow this link
Shows: 11-14 December, 5pm NYC time
Ticket: Free
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_p1EmPeacQTSMNsCcaLEh6Q
Living at a time when we are made to stay distant from one another because of a global pandemic, where intimacy means infection, and public conviviality causes contagion, this project looks back at assemblies of pleasure and politics that took place between Cairo, Berlin, and New York embodied in the history of the infamous nightclub, The KitKat. Built almost 100 years before Berlin’s KitKat Club of the 1990’s, Cairo’s KitKat was a radical cabaret by the Nile that saw constellations of artists, politicians, spies, and societal figures at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. Stories at the KitKat were shaped by major world events, from the Spanish Flu pandemic, the shutting down of theatres, to WWI and WWII.
This project, screened on a projector in the front window of the Goethe-Institut New York, weaves stories from the Isherwood’s American imagination of Germany, and Hollywood's depiction of Weimar cabarets in the 1972 film Cabaret (also taking place at a ‘KitKat Club’), going all the way back to the belly dancing, microtonal singing and glamorous houseboats in Cairo. Anita Berber, Josephine Baker, Hekmat Fahmy, Adolf Hitler, Hans Eppler, Anwar Sadat, Laszlo Almasy, Samia Gamal, Cecile B. DeMille, and Amina Mohammed are some characters that stride reality and fiction in ways akin to the performances of nationhood perpetuated by governments at times of cultural wars. The project is based on research conducted in Berlin, Cairo, London and New York, with MI5 files that have been recently declassified by the British Intelligence, oral histories from the KitKat neighborhood in Cairo, and chronicles of intergenerational clubbing within Cairo, New York and Berlin’s nightlife as we continue to live through a world of no theatres, cabarets or clubs today. Filmed on site at the KitKat Club in Berlin, La Mama Theatre New York, and Cairo.
Cairo Kitkat Club is an episodic and modular project, staged in different constellations each time it is presented.
Project of HaRaKa Platform, in partnership with and supported by Goethe-Institut New York, and Co-presented by La Mama Theatre, and further supported by the Hilal Foundation, Sundance Institute, Kuchar&Co, and Yashmask. The project is developed through Cairo Critical Cabaret, a performance lab initiated by HaRaKa Platform, experimenting with the form and history of cabaret, staging multiple artistic objects, processes and interventions.
Performance, research, composition by: Mona Gamil, Lamia Gouda, Cindy Sibilsky, Adam Kucharski, Adham Hafez
Guest stars: Amie Sultan, Nicky Paraiso, Ohoude Khadr, Fadi Khoury
Urban history research: Adam Kucharski
Senior experts: Ashraf Gharib, Raph Cormack
Music compositions: Mona Gamil, Adham Hafez
Technical director and production management: Mido Sadek
DOP: Monti Bayoud, Mariam Mekiwi
Editing: Waad Taai
Visual consultant: Shayma Aziz
Initial script dramaturgy: Leyla Rabih
Berlin research: Layal Seifan, Ohoude Khadr
Initial research: Sara Soumaya Abed
Conceived and directed by: Adham Hafez
HaRaKa Platform was established in 2006 by a group of artists, theorists and specialists initially based in Cairo and working from Berlin, New York City, and Cairo since 2011. HaRaKa is the first platform dedicated to performance studies and movement research in Egypt, and through local, regional and international partnerships it has curated, produced, published, researched and set up pedagogic programs in the Arab world, Europe and the US. Its latest projects were presented at Sharjah Architecture Triennial (UAE), La Mama Theatre (US), Hebbel Am Ufer (Germany), among others. The platform focuses on colonial histories in relation to body-based practices, gender in performance, the Anthropocene and its cultural implications, as well as new planetary paradigms. It is steered by its core members, Mona Gamil, Lamia Gouda, Adam Kucharski and Adham Hafez. Over the past fifteen years HaRaKa has created collaborations with renowned artists including Cristina Caprioli (Stockholm), Constanza Macras (Berlin), Mey Seifan (Damascus/ Berlin), Yoshiko Chuma (New York), Myriam Van Imschoot (Brussels). HaRaKa stages performances, publishes and translates texts on choreography and theatre, and has curated several international festivals and exchange platforms in Egypt, the US and Germany specializing in contemporary Arab performance practices and diasporic communities.
Adham Hafez is a Berlin and New York based choreographer, sound artist, theorist and performer. Recipient of multiple awards including First Prize for Choreography by Cairo Opera House, Adham Hafez was recently described by the New Yorker as 'an intellectual magpie whose text-heavy works bristle with political ideas'. He studied science, choreography, political science and performance studies in Amsterdam, Paris and New York. Adham Hafez is the founder of HaRaKa Platform and is the principal choreographer associated with its work.
Adham Hafez
Artistic Director
HaRaKa Dance Development and Research
Adham Hafez Company
www.harakaplatform.com
www.adhamhafez.co
*
As part of the 13th Gwangju Biennale I would like to share with you a little text that lovesexy writer and scholar Travis Jeppeson wrote for the online journal:
https://13thgwangjubiennale.org/minds-rising/#bimonthly-no-4
*
Dear all,
I am very excited to share with you our latest production 'Cairo Critical Club'. Rehearsed and filmed between Berlin, New York and Cairo, the production takes cabaret into the digital realm, and rethinks of assemblies of pleasure and public conviviality through the history of the KitKat Club.
To register and watch the performances online, please follow this link
Shows: 11-14 December, 5pm NYC time
Ticket: Free
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_p1EmPeacQTSMNsCcaLEh6Q
Living at a time when we are made to stay distant from one another because of a global pandemic, where intimacy means infection, and public conviviality causes contagion, this project looks back at assemblies of pleasure and politics that took place between Cairo, Berlin, and New York embodied in the history of the infamous nightclub, The KitKat. Built almost 100 years before Berlin’s KitKat Club of the 1990’s, Cairo’s KitKat was a radical cabaret by the Nile that saw constellations of artists, politicians, spies, and societal figures at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. Stories at the KitKat were shaped by major world events, from the Spanish Flu pandemic, the shutting down of theatres, to WWI and WWII.
This project, screened on a projector in the front window of the Goethe-Institut New York, weaves stories from the Isherwood’s American imagination of Germany, and Hollywood's depiction of Weimar cabarets in the 1972 film Cabaret (also taking place at a ‘KitKat Club’), going all the way back to the belly dancing, microtonal singing and glamorous houseboats in Cairo. Anita Berber, Josephine Baker, Hekmat Fahmy, Adolf Hitler, Hans Eppler, Anwar Sadat, Laszlo Almasy, Samia Gamal, Cecile B. DeMille, and Amina Mohammed are some characters that stride reality and fiction in ways akin to the performances of nationhood perpetuated by governments at times of cultural wars. The project is based on research conducted in Berlin, Cairo, London and New York, with MI5 files that have been recently declassified by the British Intelligence, oral histories from the KitKat neighborhood in Cairo, and chronicles of intergenerational clubbing within Cairo, New York and Berlin’s nightlife as we continue to live through a world of no theatres, cabarets or clubs today. Filmed on site at the KitKat Club in Berlin, La Mama Theatre New York, and Cairo.
Cairo Kitkat Club is an episodic and modular project, staged in different constellations each time it is presented.
Project of HaRaKa Platform, in partnership with and supported by Goethe-Institut New York, and Co-presented by La Mama Theatre, and further supported by the Hilal Foundation, Sundance Institute, Kuchar&Co, and Yashmask. The project is developed through Cairo Critical Cabaret, a performance lab initiated by HaRaKa Platform, experimenting with the form and history of cabaret, staging multiple artistic objects, processes and interventions.
Performance, research, composition by: Mona Gamil, Lamia Gouda, Cindy Sibilsky, Adam Kucharski, Adham Hafez
Guest stars: Amie Sultan, Nicky Paraiso, Ohoude Khadr, Fadi Khoury
Urban history research: Adam Kucharski
Senior experts: Ashraf Gharib, Raph Cormack
Music compositions: Mona Gamil, Adham Hafez
Technical director and production management: Mido Sadek
DOP: Monti Bayoud, Mariam Mekiwi
Editing: Waad Taai
Visual consultant: Shayma Aziz
Initial script dramaturgy: Leyla Rabih
Berlin research: Layal Seifan, Ohoude Khadr
Initial research: Sara Soumaya Abed
Conceived and directed by: Adham Hafez
HaRaKa Platform was established in 2006 by a group of artists, theorists and specialists initially based in Cairo and working from Berlin, New York City, and Cairo since 2011. HaRaKa is the first platform dedicated to performance studies and movement research in Egypt, and through local, regional and international partnerships it has curated, produced, published, researched and set up pedagogic programs in the Arab world, Europe and the US. Its latest projects were presented at Sharjah Architecture Triennial (UAE), La Mama Theatre (US), Hebbel Am Ufer (Germany), among others. The platform focuses on colonial histories in relation to body-based practices, gender in performance, the Anthropocene and its cultural implications, as well as new planetary paradigms. It is steered by its core members, Mona Gamil, Lamia Gouda, Adam Kucharski and Adham Hafez. Over the past fifteen years HaRaKa has created collaborations with renowned artists including Cristina Caprioli (Stockholm), Constanza Macras (Berlin), Mey Seifan (Damascus/ Berlin), Yoshiko Chuma (New York), Myriam Van Imschoot (Brussels). HaRaKa stages performances, publishes and translates texts on choreography and theatre, and has curated several international festivals and exchange platforms in Egypt, the US and Germany specializing in contemporary Arab performance practices and diasporic communities.
Adham Hafez is a Berlin and New York based choreographer, sound artist, theorist and performer. Recipient of multiple awards including First Prize for Choreography by Cairo Opera House, Adham Hafez was recently described by the New Yorker as 'an intellectual magpie whose text-heavy works bristle with political ideas'. He studied science, choreography, political science and performance studies in Amsterdam, Paris and New York. Adham Hafez is the founder of HaRaKa Platform and is the principal choreographer associated with its work.
Adham Hafez
Artistic Director
HaRaKa Dance Development and Research
Adham Hafez Company
www.harakaplatform.com
www.adhamhafez.co
*
As part of the 13th Gwangju Biennale I would like to share with you a little text that lovesexy writer and scholar Travis Jeppeson wrote for the online journal:
https://13thgwangjubiennale.org/minds-rising/#bimonthly-no-4
*
Hump of the Month
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Jose E. Montaño the super gorgeous and talented Swedish/Bolivian production designer at the Cheese Endique Trifecta, the studio of Vaginal Davis at 7850 Sunset Blvd on the Sunset Strip at La Villa Rosa, the location of Fertile La Toyah Jackson Magazine, Shrimp-the Magazine for Licking and Sucking Bigger and Better Feet and Hag Gallery-small, contemporary,haggard 1992. The disco ball is the same one that Afro Sister "Pop That Cherry Jefferson" aka the late Priscilla Hazelwood stole from the pop group Devo when the Afro Sisters opened up for Devo at LlasaLand back in the late 1980s
Berlin actor and beauty "IT" Boy Emilio Sakraya
Sunday, December 06, 2020
LEGT IHRE HAND AUF SEIN GEWAND UND WEIST AUF DIE WÄRTERIN
legt ihre Hand auf sein Gewand und weist auf die Wäarterin
lächelt und führt sie mit sich hin
My supremely talented best girlfriend that gifted young woman known as Ms. Glen Meadmore of Winnipeg, Canada is back at his dayjob as the Limousine Driver to the Schtars. Because of the Pandora Pandemic he was furloughed by the company he works for several months. Glen has made a very good living as a driver, well he did until the horrible ride sharing apps of Lyft and Über came to Los Angeles.
Recently Glen was driving fashion design God Rick Owens who was back in California visiting his elderly mom Connie. Rick is from the central California town of Porterville. His mother is Mexican and is one of the most beautiful and loving ladies I have ever met. Rick's late father was caucasion and possessed a super intellect but was somewhat cold and distant. Rick is now in Dubai for business with his longtime companion and wife of over twenty years the legends legend Michele Lamy. I've actually known Michele much longer then Rick. Michele and I have had a contentious relationship over the years. Michele is very tough and doesn't take any shit from anyone. We've called each other out many times over the four decades we've known each other. One time at Michele's studio in downtown LA in the late 1980s on Traction Avenue she was dying some clothes which she would do when she was troubled about something. I said one of my smart alec flippant remarks in that innocent manner in which one is not exactly sure the meaning behind it. Of course Michele who is a genius knew exactly my meaning and she did not mince words and yelled at me with her sexy cigarette fueled voice "GET OUT! banishing me from her inner circle for about a month. Michele loves to dance, and I was her favourite dance partner at clubs like Flaming Colossus so I was able to worm myself back into her good graces.
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Just received a note from one of my alltime favourite peeps the delicious anarchist artist extroidinaire Sherry Milner who sent me another one of her amazing post card serials. Sherry and her longtime companion Ernie Larson are the real deal 100%. Enjoy.
And this from my old pal from my spoken word days in the 1980s, Miss Janet Klein:
Friday, December 04, 2020
DER FÜNFTE BÜRGER
DER FÜNFTE BÜRGER
in der Nähe der Tür zügernd
Our little tiny five feet two lady Vaginal Davis has been courted by juicy Canadian pop wunderkind Shawn Mendes to collaborate on material. Whether it will happen or not is anyone's guess as Ms. D can be a bit difficult to corral. Will keep you postada.
Whatever happened to Stephen and Gladys May the famous mother and son couple of Los Angeles in the 1980s. They were like the mother and son in Suddenly, Last Summer but much more glamorous. Stephen's boyfriend at the time was the incredibly attractive and talented ginger make-up and graphic artist Jeff Judd who also dabbles as a DJ creating the fab soundtrack for Rick Owens fashion shows in Paris. Jeff also had a drag persona known as Jolet who wore costumes designed by Marina Spadafora. The rumor floating about at that time was that Jeff, his boyfriend and the boyfriends mother were part of a scandalous menage.
Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi is pleased to announce
Michaela Eichwald
MICHAELA EICHWALD
Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany
1 December 2020 – 16 May 2021
Opening: Postponed until further notice
Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys
in
Boy Vereecken, Back Matter
MACRO, Rome, Italy
3 December 2020 – 14 February 20201
Vaginal Davis
in
THE STORE, curated by Jonathan Berger
Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO, USA
December 2020 – December 2021
Wu Tsang
in conversation with boychild
INFERNO Summit 2020
ICA London, Cinema 3, London, UK
Saturday, 5 December 2020, 11 am
Available online through 3 January 2021
Veit Laurent Kurz
Winterfest: An Exhibition of Arts and Crafts
Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO, USA
18 December 2020 – 21 February 2021
Diamond Stingily
in
NGV Triennial 2
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
19 December 2020 – 18 April 2021
Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi
Schöneberger Ufer 61
10785 Berlin
+49–(0)30–26 39 76 20
info@bortolozzi.com
www.bortolozzi.com
*
in der Nähe der Tür zügernd
Our little tiny five feet two lady Vaginal Davis has been courted by juicy Canadian pop wunderkind Shawn Mendes to collaborate on material. Whether it will happen or not is anyone's guess as Ms. D can be a bit difficult to corral. Will keep you postada.
Whatever happened to Stephen and Gladys May the famous mother and son couple of Los Angeles in the 1980s. They were like the mother and son in Suddenly, Last Summer but much more glamorous. Stephen's boyfriend at the time was the incredibly attractive and talented ginger make-up and graphic artist Jeff Judd who also dabbles as a DJ creating the fab soundtrack for Rick Owens fashion shows in Paris. Jeff also had a drag persona known as Jolet who wore costumes designed by Marina Spadafora. The rumor floating about at that time was that Jeff, his boyfriend and the boyfriends mother were part of a scandalous menage.
Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi is pleased to announce
Michaela Eichwald
MICHAELA EICHWALD
Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany
1 December 2020 – 16 May 2021
Opening: Postponed until further notice
Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys
in
Boy Vereecken, Back Matter
MACRO, Rome, Italy
3 December 2020 – 14 February 20201
Vaginal Davis
in
THE STORE, curated by Jonathan Berger
Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO, USA
December 2020 – December 2021
Wu Tsang
in conversation with boychild
INFERNO Summit 2020
ICA London, Cinema 3, London, UK
Saturday, 5 December 2020, 11 am
Available online through 3 January 2021
Veit Laurent Kurz
Winterfest: An Exhibition of Arts and Crafts
Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO, USA
18 December 2020 – 21 February 2021
Diamond Stingily
in
NGV Triennial 2
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
19 December 2020 – 18 April 2021
Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi
Schöneberger Ufer 61
10785 Berlin
+49–(0)30–26 39 76 20
info@bortolozzi.com
www.bortolozzi.com
*
Episode 3: The Comedian
Featuring Gregg Bordowitz
with Morgan Bassichis and The Illustrious Pearl
Watch the advice show on YouTube
Tonight, on the final episode of Answers with Questions, host Gregg Bordowitz confers with the comedic performer Morgan Bassichisand the poet and drag artist The Illustrious Pearl to answer questions from viewers on canine incontinence, sexual hope, friendship’s limits, and the social uses of humor. The episode features appearances by several people seeking advice from Bordowitz and his guests, including the theorist and educator Lauren Berlant, the artist and scholar Vaginal Davis, the scholar and performer Malik Gaines, the cultural theorist Sianne Ngai, and the artists Jason Simon and Moyra Davey.
Stream Episode 1: The Rock Star, with Jasmine Nyende and Vivien Goldman
Stream Episode 2: The Rabbi, with Joy Ladin and Kendall Thomas
Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Triple Canopy here. A gift of any size will go a long way in supporting our ambitious programs and goals for the year ahead. You can also become a sustaining member of Triple Canopy here.
Humpz of the Month
Featuring Gregg Bordowitz
with Morgan Bassichis and The Illustrious Pearl
Watch the advice show on YouTube
Tonight, on the final episode of Answers with Questions, host Gregg Bordowitz confers with the comedic performer Morgan Bassichisand the poet and drag artist The Illustrious Pearl to answer questions from viewers on canine incontinence, sexual hope, friendship’s limits, and the social uses of humor. The episode features appearances by several people seeking advice from Bordowitz and his guests, including the theorist and educator Lauren Berlant, the artist and scholar Vaginal Davis, the scholar and performer Malik Gaines, the cultural theorist Sianne Ngai, and the artists Jason Simon and Moyra Davey.
Stream Episode 1: The Rock Star, with Jasmine Nyende and Vivien Goldman
Stream Episode 2: The Rabbi, with Joy Ladin and Kendall Thomas
Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Triple Canopy here. A gift of any size will go a long way in supporting our ambitious programs and goals for the year ahead. You can also become a sustaining member of Triple Canopy here.
Humpz of the Month
Saturday, November 28, 2020
EINER KOMMT, DEN SPORNT DIE WUT
Einer kommt, den spornt die Wut.
Wut entzündet die Gier
That wonderful human sex bomb Bradford Nordeen,The Fourth of Dirty Looks just sent me a lovely gift packet of goodies from Los Angeles including a Day Goth poster (his dance club with the amazing Kimberly-Kim Nesgore), his latest tome Because Horror co-written by that fabulous scribe Johnny Ray Huston, with an afterward by Hedi El Kholti of Semio Text is out now so do yourself a favour and get it now.
Mr. Nordeen is quite a notable national figurine for all his many prolific projects that encompass writing, curating and film programming. He is also known for spreading beyonda sexual joy to many, with his five and counting children from different baby mommas and a myriad of butt babies with a cornucopia of humpy baby papas. La Mr. Nordeen brings pleasure to so many men and women even though he's from the problematic city of St. Louis. Well I can assure you our Mr. Nordeen who hails from one of America's most patrician olde $money families doesn't discriminate on the basis of race, class and ethnicity as he is the proud father of so many biracial children that he could single handedly bring back United Colors of Benetton.
Oh much thanks to Hedi El Kholti and Chris Kraus of Semio Text for the photo book of the work of Reynaldo Rivera which features a juicy essay/conversation between the handsome photographer and Ms. Vaginal Davis. Pick it up at your local high end bookshop. Speaking of fancy books, you must run out and purchase Queer Communion: Ron Athey edited by Amelia Jones and Andy Campbell, the definitive book on the famed performance artist and love god Ron Athey Jr. What makes this book a lot better then the book that came out in 2013 is this one features much more of Ron Athey in his own voice with both published and never before published pieces of his incredible prose. The book also culminates with an art exhibition at Participant Inc Gallery in New York City in 2021.
One of Vaginal Davis' ex students at the Art University in Geneva is Prince Aly Muhammad Aga Khan whose is related to Princess Yasmin Aga Khan the daughter of Hollywood Golden era star Rita Hayworth. The young Prince is a very sweet boy of 20 years who audited Ms. Davis' performance art seminar Perverse Assemblages for a short time as the majority of Ms. Davis' students are of the graduate level in the program Work Master HEAD.
Wut entzündet die Gier
That wonderful human sex bomb Bradford Nordeen,The Fourth of Dirty Looks just sent me a lovely gift packet of goodies from Los Angeles including a Day Goth poster (his dance club with the amazing Kimberly-Kim Nesgore), his latest tome Because Horror co-written by that fabulous scribe Johnny Ray Huston, with an afterward by Hedi El Kholti of Semio Text is out now so do yourself a favour and get it now.
Mr. Nordeen is quite a notable national figurine for all his many prolific projects that encompass writing, curating and film programming. He is also known for spreading beyonda sexual joy to many, with his five and counting children from different baby mommas and a myriad of butt babies with a cornucopia of humpy baby papas. La Mr. Nordeen brings pleasure to so many men and women even though he's from the problematic city of St. Louis. Well I can assure you our Mr. Nordeen who hails from one of America's most patrician olde $money families doesn't discriminate on the basis of race, class and ethnicity as he is the proud father of so many biracial children that he could single handedly bring back United Colors of Benetton.
Oh much thanks to Hedi El Kholti and Chris Kraus of Semio Text for the photo book of the work of Reynaldo Rivera which features a juicy essay/conversation between the handsome photographer and Ms. Vaginal Davis. Pick it up at your local high end bookshop. Speaking of fancy books, you must run out and purchase Queer Communion: Ron Athey edited by Amelia Jones and Andy Campbell, the definitive book on the famed performance artist and love god Ron Athey Jr. What makes this book a lot better then the book that came out in 2013 is this one features much more of Ron Athey in his own voice with both published and never before published pieces of his incredible prose. The book also culminates with an art exhibition at Participant Inc Gallery in New York City in 2021.
One of Vaginal Davis' ex students at the Art University in Geneva is Prince Aly Muhammad Aga Khan whose is related to Princess Yasmin Aga Khan the daughter of Hollywood Golden era star Rita Hayworth. The young Prince is a very sweet boy of 20 years who audited Ms. Davis' performance art seminar Perverse Assemblages for a short time as the majority of Ms. Davis' students are of the graduate level in the program Work Master HEAD.
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