We ride them and Tingel-Tangel

We ride them and Tingel-Tangel
October 21- December 4, 2010
20 years of independent publications
by Darin Klein
Curated by Margaret Tedesco

Edition available - text by Christopher Russell

BRX PROJECT SPACE
Baer Ridgway Exhibitions
172 Minna Street
San Francisco, CA 94105

Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 6pm
www.baerridgway.com
tel 415.777.1366

Installation shot of my books, made between 1991 and 2010

Photocopied and tiled wall installation - an homage to independent publications (all taken from work in my collection)

Photocopied and tiled wall installation - an homage to independent publications (all taken from work in my collection)

Cliff Hengst performs in conjunction with my artist lecture (video installation by Mads Lynnerup. Photo by Karla Milosevich)

We ride them and Tingel-Tangel

Portrait of the artist by Jeaneen Lund

We ride them and Tingel-Tangel
October 21- December 4, 2010
20 years of independent publications
by Darin Klein
Curated by Margaret Tedesco

BRX PROJECT SPACE
Baer Ridgway Exhibitions
172 Minna Street
San Francisco, CA 94105

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 21, 5pm - 8pm
Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 6pm
www.baerridgway.com
tel 415.777.1366

Saturday October 23, 2:00pm
Performance: Cliff Hengst
Exhibition walk-through and artist lecture: Darin Klein
'Zine release: 21st Century Queer Artists Identify Themselves #2 & #3 ($10 each)

Darin Klein & Suzanne Wright present: 21st Century Queer Artists Identify Themselves #2 featuring Ron Abram, Brandon Andrew, Artist Curated Projects, Cody Bayne, Alex Black & Samuel White w/ Closetboy, Lindsay Brant, Timothy Cummings, Cathy de la Cruz, Nathalie Dierickx, Deanna Erdmann, Fag Punk, Ella Gant, Sam Gordon, Jeremiah Gregory, Nicholas Grider, Lia Halloran, Jim Hanson, Hi Fashion, Onya Hogan-Finlay, David Humphrey, Larissa Brantner James, Jonesy, David King, Anthony Lepore, Joe Mama-Nitzberg & Marc Swanson, Kirk Maxson, Lucas Michael, Zac Monday, Leon Mostovoy, Erwin Ong, Paul Pescador, Clifford Landon Pun, Christopher Russell, Steven Reigns, Christopher Schulz, Ethan Shoshan, Max Steele, Doug Stockstill, Sweaterqueens, Margaret Tedesco, Philip Tomaru, Chris Vargas & Greg Youmans, Rob Williams, Marty Windahl, Charles Herman Wurmfeld, Joe Yorty, Austin Young

Darin Klein & Suzanne Wright present: 21st Century Queer Artists Identify Themselves #3 featuring Noël Alumit & Manuel Falcon Padua, Adam J. Ansell, Eden Batki, JohnJoseph Bibby, Erich Bolmann, Micha Cardenas & Elle Mehrmand, Kelly Cline, Malene Dam, Antonio Diaz, Christopher Dibble, Tracy Dishman, Ben Evans, Frankie Fever, Kris Grey, David Gilbert, Hilary Goldberg, Abel Baker Gutierrez, Michael T. Harrison, Michael Hayden, Kate Hoffman, Nadine Hottenrott, Daniel Ingroff, Jason Jenn, Kevin Killian, Molly Larkey, Ian MacKinnon, Martin Masetto, Jason Mecier, Jason Fritz Michael, Sharon Molloy, Grace Moon, Magritte Nankin, Kean O’Brien, Billy O’Callaghan, Tyler Matthew Oyer, Andrew Printer, Iana Quesnell, Lawrence Rinder, Jim Schatz & J.G.R., Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Angela Smith, Molly Stinchfield, Marc Swanson, Irwin Swirnoff, Carla Verea & Francisca Rivero-Lake, Jim Winters, The Yes Men, Justin Yockel

Exhibition related edition:
A Transcription of the Audio Tour
Darin Klein Childhood Home and Museum
Clovis, California
16-page publication, full-color
Text: Christopher Russell / Photographs: Jeaneen Lund
Published by [ 2nd floor projects ] and Baer Ridgway Exhibitions ($9)

Working with an ever-expanding network of friends, Darin Klein curates and organizes exhibitions and arts programming, simultaneously producing, collecting and promoting artists' publications and independent media. A recipient of Printed Matter's Awards for Artists this year, he has been creating, exhibiting, and distributing solo and collaborative independent publications for nearly two decades. Recent curatorial endeavors include Christopher Russell's Hammer Project at the Hammer Museum and a series of exhibitions and related public programs at Amy Adler's Echo Park Studio, both in Los Angeles. A regular exhibitor at Printed Matter's NY Art Book Fair since 2007, Klein's recent publishing projects include Box of Books, Vols. I-III and 21st Century Queer Artists Identify Themselves #1-3.

Christopher Russell is an artist, writer, and academic vagabond based in Los Angeles, currently teaching at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He received his BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1998 and his MFA from Art Center College of Design in 2004. From 2001 to 2005 Russell edited, designed, produced, and distributed the destroy-to-enjoy literary art magazine Bedwetter. Landscape, a monograph of Russell's work, was published in 2007 by Kolapsomal Press. He wrote and edited the exhibition catalog, Against the Grain, which accompanied his 2008 curatorial debut at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. His illustrated novella, Budget Decadence, appeared earlier this year through 2nd Cannons Publications. His first novel, Sniper, will be published in early 2011. Russell has written over two dozen articles about contemporary art and has exhibited internationally, including a solo exhibition at the Hammer Museum, and upcoming solo installations at Luis De Jesus, Los Angeles and the NADA Art Fair in Miami. Russell's work is included in the collections of The J.P. Getty Museum; Rhode Island School of Design Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles; The Hammer Museum; Tom of Finland Foundation, and New York University/Fales Library.

Cliff Hengst is an artist based in San Francisco. His wall drawings, paintings, and performances have been included in numerous exhibitions including Marella Arte (Milan, Italy) and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Gallery 16, and [ 2nd floor projects ] (San Francisco, CA). He has worked collaboratively with Larry Rinder at Testsite in Austin, TX, and with Scott Hewicker on Good Times: Bad Trips, a book dedicated to the phenomena of the bad drug trip. Over 50 contributors (including noted artists Devendra Banhart, Tony Labat, and Chris Johanson) recount their bad trips, each paired with photographs, paintings and collages by Hewicker and Hengst. Hengst has an exhibition currently on view at Gallery 16, San Francisco. For the Baer Ridgway exclusive, CLIFF HENGST performs a ritualistic delivery of the brand new Darin Klein & Friends 'zines, 21st Century Queer Artists Identify Themselves #2 & #3.

Playing Dumb

Brandon Andrew

Tyler Calkin

Abel Baker Gutierrez

Laura Marchetti

Zac Monday

Nathan Lam Vuong

Playing Dumb Back Room Salon

Playing Dumb
Organized by
Abel Baker Gutierrez & Zac Monday

Saturdays from 7-10pm
September 18 through October 9, 2010
Amy Adler’s Echo Park Studio
1296 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Brandon Andrew
Tyler Calkin
Abel Baker Gutierrez
Laura Marchetti
Zac Monday
Nathan Lam Vuong

Free admission
Free beer (you bring, OK?)

Friends and strangers alike are invited to a month-long exploration of literal and metaphoric applications of the term “Playing Dumb” through visual and performance art programming. Once again providing a site for experimentation, community building, participation and dialogue, Amy Adler offers her studio to up-and-coming artists whose unique visions need a temporary home and a chance to play.

September 18
Musical chairs + DJ sets by Brandon Andrew

September 25
Storytime with Laura Marchetti + DJ performance by Abel Baker Gutierrez

October 2
Playtime with Tyler Calkin + DJ sets with Abel Baker Gutierrez

October 9
Tarot readings by Zac Monday & Friends
CD listening party: Tarot of the Witches by Tomek Fior
‘Zine release party: Playing Dumb by the Playing Dumb artists (limited edition!)

Playing Dumb - the 'zine!

Brandon Andrew (1982) is speaking in the third person about himself and trying to define who and what he is through the objects he produces in an altermodern dialect to sound more contemporaneous and institutionally structured. Sadly, much like his work, he fails at accomplishing said act and just lets it all fall apart in a big ol’ WAH WAH but hey cheer up, you can pop the balloons at the end of the show. Brandon defines himself as the looped version of the Song That Never Ends by Lamb Chop on a record player with dying batteries. His interest, production, and execution lie within those last four minutes of battery life. He received his BFA in 2010 and works predominantly in sculptural movement.

Tyler Calkin uses participatory sculpture, performance, and video to investigate the relationships between social expectation and physical awareness. A California native but a newcomer to Los Angeles, Tyler has exhibited his work in the United States and Canada. He received his bachelor’s degree from Whitman College in 2009, and is currently an MFA candidate at the California Institute of the Arts.tylercalkin.com

Abel Gutierrez was born and raised in Southern California. Finding inspiration in subjects ranging from rock music's aesthetic trends to Internet subcultures to old master paintings, Gutierrez experiments with art materials and photography to create portraits and installations that reflect our obsession with youth culture and explore issues of 'growing up'. Abel will graduate with an MFA from CalArts in Spring 2011.abelgutierrez.com

Laura Marchetti was raised in Ocoee, Florida, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She makes paintings and sculptures about growing up steeped in Southern Baptist rituals and lexicon, asking the viewer to consider the residual aspects of indoctrination. Her latest series of paintings and comic books were created at the Hambidge Artist Residency Program after researching abroad in Cluj, Romania. She binds books, curates shows, and makes comics. She graduated from California Institute of the Arts in May 2009, with a BFA in Art and is currently the Director of Education at Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock.

Zac Monday (1985) is an MFA student at University of California in San Diego. He received his BFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2007, while an active participant in the Richmond art community. His crochet work and drawings are animated through emotional rituals and mystical experiences that dictate how a viewer and the maker interact with work. The constant question of comfortability is etched into figures that exist and should not exist; they are an accumulation of fantasies but must reside in reality.

Nathan Lam Vuong was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi to Vietnamese refugees. His videos, photography, watercolors, karaoke works, installations, and performances deal with Asian-American culture and the nuances of loneliness and confusion in dating. A graduate of the University of Miami, he trekked from Florida to California to pursue an MFA at CalArts. In 2009, he performed with the group J-Lep for Machine Projects at LACMA. Recently he has been producing a weekly comic strip, Post-Ironic, for TheHeatLightning.com. He is usually playing violin, reading comics, or waiting by the refreshments table for people to hit on him. nailsbyasians.com

Darin Klein & Friends Present: Original Plumbing #3 Release Party

Darin Klein & Friends Present
Original Plumbing #3 Release Party
Saturday, July 10 2010
8:30pm reception
9:30pm films and performances
An OUTFEST/Platinum Party
REDCAT Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater
631 West 2nd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Butchlalis de Panochtitlan
Cosa Rara (exerpt)
Cast members: Claudia Rodriguez, Marianna Marroquin
Cosa Rara (Strange Thing) is a romantic comedy with a queer, cross-cultural, transgender spin. Jacqui, a butch Chicana lesbian falls in love with Katrina, an immigrant Salvadoran transgender woman. It isn't long before the complexities of attraction, sex, and gender open up to the hot-button issue of marriage. Butchlalis de Panochtitlan, or BdP for short, is a trio comprised of Mari Garcia, Raquel Gutierrez and Claudia Rodriguez. This Los Angeles-based multimedia performance ensemble renders cartographies of desire, identity, and localized histories on the bodies they walk in as they perform themselves, each other, imagined characters and caricatures. BdP emerged from community based activist spaces to create visibility around politicized identities and the limitations in identity politics within a Los Angeles-centric context. Their work also touches on the humor and irreverence found in the everyday lives of gender minorities and outlaws living in the 20th and 21st century.
myspace.com/butchlalis

Lost Lake
Zackary Drucker & Van Barnes, 2010
Filmed at the peak of autumn foliage in a rural Midwestern US locale, this non-narrative collaboration posits beauty and fear as inextricable from the psyche of the American landscape. Contemplative moments and stunning vistas are jarringly punctuated with the vocabularies of witch-hunts, hate crimes and psychological violence. Edited by Martha Windahl. Zackary Drucker has performed and screened films at venues including The Hammer Museum, LACE, Outfest, Redcat, and Steve Turner Contemporary, all in Los Angeles. Her previous film collaboration with Van Barnes, You will never be a woman… (2008), screened at Acuna-Hansen Gallery in Los Angeles, as well as festivals in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
zackarydrucker.com

WRCKNG WLL
Math Bass, 2010
A weighted, hanging trophy topples a brick wall. Math Bass has recorded and toured as one half of the performance duo Marriage, contributed to the journal LTTR and has been featured in exhibitions including Shared Women at LACE in Los Angeles, and The Way That We Rhyme at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Having moved to LA to collaborate with feminist inventors, Math most recently blew our minds with amazing gastronomical skills as one half of International Brunch as well as performing at Women Together… Fantastic! (WTF!).

Stick, Stick, Stuck
Eden Batki & Daniela Sea, 2010
A woman navigates the aftermath of a recently pruned and bare bed of rose bushes. Despite being snagged, stuck, and torn, she finds unexpected moments of solace and stillness. During this performative struggle, the line between resistance and acceptance wavers. Edited by Martha Windahl, performed by Dawn Kasper. Eden Batki and Daniela Sea live and work in Los Angeles and the world.
edenbatki.com
danielasea.com

Falling in Love... With Chris and Greg Episode #3: Food!
Chris Vargas & Greg Youmans, 2010
A situation comedy about a gay odd couple, one liberal, one radical; one transgendered, one not. They don't have a whole lot in common, but somehow they manage. In this third episode, the pair's conflicting body issues threaten to tear their love apart. The Falling in Love... series has screened at Pacific Film Archives, Berkeley, CA; Homo-a-Go Go @ ATA, Frameline #33 and #34, and K’vetsh Queer Open Mic, all in San Francisco; Hamburg Int’l Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Hamburg, Germany; BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London, UK; Outfest, Los Angeles; and MIX NYC, New York, NY.
fallinginlovewithchrisandgreg.com

Katastrophe (Photo by Allison Michael Orenstein)
Original Plumbing Assistant Editor Rocco Kayiatos is a San Francisco based rapper and producer under the name Katastrophe. He's a seasoned vet on the mic and got his start competing in poetry slams in 1997. Combining his love of music and language, he started rapping and making beats in 2002. He uses his poetic grasp of language to weave dense tales of lives lived outside the mainstreams of education, gender, and culture.
katastropherap.com

Hi Fashion $9.99
Committed to costume, make-up, and spectacle, Hi-Fashion $9.99 explores the creation of identity in a pop music idiom. Dependent upon incorporating anyone interested in performing into the work, each piece becomes a relationship between construction, coincidence, instinct, and direction. By inviting the audience to collaborate, the work blurs the line between spectator and performer, thereby offering all involved an opportunity for a visceral and primal experience. They have thrilled audiences at LACE in Los Angeles and Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica.
myspace.com/hifashion999

The Miracle Bookmobile
Operated out of Kelly Besser's Jeep with the help of friendly volunteers, The Miracle Bookmobile offers free reading materials with an emphasis on queer publications, books in Español and "anything that can be Xeroxed and prepared for mass consumption". Besser and co-conspirators aim to keep it free, so donations of books and zines are welcome. The Miracle has made Los Angeles appearances at events and institutions including the Municipal Art Gallery and Sea & Space Explorations.

Selling like hotcakest at the merch table in the REDCAT lobby during the pre-show reception: Katastrophe's "The Worst Amazing" CD and t-shirts and all three issues of Original Plumbing magazine plus OP t-shirts, buttons and stickers.

Darin Klein & Friends Present: Original Plumbing #3 Release Party

Amos Mac
Luke, 2010
Color Photograph

Darin Klein & Friends Present
Original Plumbing #3 Release Party
Saturday, July 10 2010
8:30pm reception
9:30pm films and performances
An OUTFEST/Platinum Party
REDCAT Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater

Darin Klein & Friends invite you to celebrate the third issue of San Francisco’s trans male quarterly, Original Plumbing. This showcase of talent from the trans, genderqueer and queer communities includes four sizzling LA film premieres from Math Bass, Eden Batki & Daniela Sea, Zackary Drucker & Van Barnes, and Chris Vargas & Greg Youmans. Also in store are performances from activists/humorists Butchlalis de Panochtitlan, techno-pop art band Hi Fashion $9.99 and rapper Katastrophe. PLUS: be sure to check out The Miracle Bookmobile (free reading material – book donations welcome) and a pre-screening reception with OP editor Amos Mac, offering affordable original art and copies of Original Plumbing #3, hottt off the press!

Original Plumbing is the premier quarterly print magazine dedicated to the sexuality and culture of FTM trans guys. Independently published and distributed out of San Francisco, CA., Original Plumbing documents diversity within trans male lifestyles through photographic portraits and essays, personal narratives and interviews. We feel that there is no single way to sum up what it means to be a trans man because we each have different beliefs, life experiences and relationships to our own bodies.

Darin Klein & Friends Present: Suzanne Wright Viewing Party/Closing Reception + DJs Rich Bott & Kelly Eginton

Cockpit (work in progress), colored pencil on paper, 84x156"

Recent work, installation view

Recent work, installation view

Sketches, drawings, collages

The traxxx!

The crowd

April 24
Viewing Party/Closing Reception
+ DJs Rich Bott & Kelly Eginton
A good sized crowd came out to celebrate the conclusion of Suzanne’s residency at Amy’s studio. We’ve spent the last month communing with, looking at, thinking about and highlighting different configurations of Suzanne’s work, all the while enjoying the talents of our friends and peers with a full schedule of public programs. Tonight was really all about people engaging in dialogues with the artist and one another about the gorgeous new installation of Suzanne’s recent work. Oh, I almost forgot mention, WE PARTIED HARD with an insanely diverse and somewhat obscure music playlist, all on actual vinyl records, courtesy of DJs Rich Bott and Kelly Eginton!

Darin Klein & Friends Present: Suzanne Wright + Queer Pile-up!

Suzanne cleared wallspace in anticipation of...

Queer Pile-up!

21st Century Queer Artists Identify Themselves, hottt off the press

Pocket Niko & Nathan Jones perform in front of Suzanne's work-in-progress, Cockpit

Zac Monday reads tarot cards in the back alley

Daniela Sea performs in front of Suzanne's work-in-progress, Cockpit

Micha Cárdenas & Elle Mehrmand perform Virus Circus

Just like we promised... Queer Pile-up!


April 17
Queer Pile-up!
Plus… ‘Zine release party: 21st Century Queer Artists Identify Themselves
Local queer artists were invited to bring work to the studio for a one-night exhibition. All mediums were welcomed, with wall space available on a first-come, first-served basis. 24 artists brought everything they needed for installing their drawings, paintings, photos, videos and sculptures. Pocket Niko and Nathan Jones performed live electronic guitar and keyboard (their very first show ever, and the music was really sweet!). Daniela Sea improvised a movement piece in front of Suzanne’s work-in-progress, Cockpit. Micha Cárdenas and Elle Mehrmand performed Virus Circus, a new piece involving amplified electronic sounds created by the proximity of their bodies to one another. But wait, there’s more: Jen Smith brought a homemade vegetarian feast for everyone to enjoy and Zac Monday did tarot readings in the back alley. Whew!

Visual artists: Sadie Barnette, Eden Batki, bodega vendetta, Chris Diaz & Vivian Babuts, Drew Dunlap, Kelly Eginton, Deanna Erdmann, Eve Fowler with Math Bass and Martha Windahl, Brian Gainey, Kate Gilbert, Michael Hayden, Kuan Hwa, Larissa Brantner James, Dave Jones, Anthony Lepore, Zac Monday, Andrew Printer, prvtdncr, Mina Rahnema, Christopher Russell, Jimena Sarno, Daniela Sea, Jen Smith, Elysa Voshell, Suzanne Wright, Joe Yorty

Also featured tonight was 21st Century Queer Artists Identify Themselves, a ‘zine by and about queer artists living and working in the 21st Century. A resource for sharing information and educating ourselves and our peers. A guide to identifying, contacting and inspiring each other. Artists from from around the world were invited, and 59 participants answered the call, each producing 100 standard size copies of images and/or texts documenting or representing their work. Contributors were instructed to include biographical info, web and email addresses and artist statements on the backside. The pages were collated alphabetically and stapled together. The result: 100 ‘zines including all the submissions, released to the public tonight at the Queer Pile-up!

‘Zine contributors: Adam J. Ansell, Brent Armendinger, Eden Batki, Christopher Baughman, Jennifer Blowdryer, bodega vendetta, Erich Bollmann, George Bolster, Kathrin Burmester, Enrique Castrejon, osvaldo cibils, Kelly Cline, Tracy Dishman, Drew Dunlap, Kelly Eginton, Deanna Erdmann, Edie Fake, Daphne Fitzpatrick, Brian Gainey, Paul Gellman, Abel Baker Gutierrez, Michael Hayden, Kate Hoffman, Onya Hogan-Finlay, Larissa Brantner James, Dave Jones, Dawn Kasper, Hedi El Kholti, Darin Klein, David LeBarron, Anthony Lepore, Matt Lipps, Marget Long, Ian Mackinnon, Lucas Michael, Joanne Mitchell, Sharon Molloy, Ali Naschke-Messing, Amir Nikravan, Maria E. Piñeres, Joshua Ploeg, Andrew Printer, prvtdncr, Steven Reigns, Christopher Russell, Jimena Sarno, Daniela Sea, Zachary Sharrin, Cedar Sigo & John Huston, Jen Smith, Max Steele, Margaret Tedesco, Elysa Voshell, Jim Winters, Suzanne Wright, The Yes Men, Joe Yorty, Austin Young

Darin Klein & Friends Present: Suzanne Wright + Women Together... Fantastic! (WTF!)

Particle Accelerator installation view

Westminster Panties installation view

Shuttle Launch poster

fierce pussy installation view

Catherine Lord

Math Bass

Dawn Kasper

The crowd

April 3
Women Together... Fantastic! (WTF!)
With Math Bass + fierce pussy
+ Dawn Kasper + Catherine Lord
Suzanne installed all new work in the studio for this salon style gathering that proved to be both educational and entertaining. The installation was impressive and focused, highlighting the large drawings Particle Accelerator and Westminster Panties along with a series of smaller, framed drawings. Also on view were the sculpture Double Transmission and a poster-sized reproduction of her Shuttle Launch collage. To top it all off, the outer walls of the restroom were wallpapered with ephemera from the fierce pussy collective, on top of which was hanging Suzanne’s sculpture Transtar (Orange).

The crowd gathered and the anticipation for the events built. Around 9pm, Catherine Lord took the “stage” (in this case, Math’s scooter) and read a moving passage from King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes. Next came Math, who repositioned the scooter to the middle of the studio, hooked up a computer and sound-system in the back basket, donned an helmet (safety first!) and performed a single, ominously utopian song accompanied by recorded music and the sound of the scooter’s motor. Rounding out the night was Dawn Kasper in a performance that involved an array of props, masks, hats, wigs and musical instruments. What transpired was part confessional monologue (to paraphrase: “It seemed like a good idea to glue this ass to this soy milk container, but now I’m not so sure”) and part absurd kindergarten storytime (a passage from a childrens book chronicling the life of a sausage who cooks himself).

Math Bass has recorded and toured as one half of the performance duo Marriage, contributed to the journal LTTR and has been featured in exhibitions including Shared Women at LACE in Los Angeles and The Way That We Rhyme at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Having moved to LA to collaborate with feminist inventors, Math most recently blew our minds with amazing gastronomical skills as one half of International Brunch.

Suzanne Wright and her fierce pussy co-conspirators have wheatpasted their posters and printed and distributed stickers and t-shirts throughout New York City. Other projects include re-designing the bathroom at the Gay and Lesbian Center, a greeting card campaign directed against the policies of Cardinal O’Connor and Senator D’Amato, and a moving billboard/truck. For Gay Pride 1991, fierce pussy re-named streets along the parade route after prominent lesbian heroines using stencils and spray-paint. In 2008, Printed Matter released an eponymous book of fierce pussy posters, many of which were on view tonight.
printedmatter.org

Dawn Kasper is a Los Angeles based performance and mixed media artist who describes her work ethic as one that ”houses a need for process, systems and the blurring of art and life.” She has performed and exhibited at venues including Anna Helwing, Circus of Books, The Company, J. Paul Getty Museum, LACMA, Raid Projects and Statler Waldorf in Los Angeles; Art Positions: Art Basel in Miami Beach; Art in General in New York City; and Migros Museum fur Genenwartskunst in Zurich.
dawnkasper.com

Catherine Lord is a writer, artist, and curator whose work addresses queer theory, feminism, cultural politics, and colonialism. She is the author of The Summer of Her Baldness: A Cancer Improvisation (University of Texas Press, 2004) and her critical essays and her fiction have been published in numerous journals and catalogues. She is Professor of Studio Art at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, UC Irvine.
studioart.arts.uci.edu

Darin Klein & Friends Present: Suzanne Wright + Community Gardening and Home Pickling

New work

Work in progress

Galactic Gloryhole

Sketches, drawings and collages

Jen Smith

Julie Burleigh

The crowd

March 27
Community Gardening and Home Pickling
With Julie Burleigh + Jen Smith
Julie Burleigh is an artist, mini (not micro) farmer and community organizer in Los Angeles. She started Raymond Avenue Community Garden in 2008. Tonight, Julie provided information about her community garden and her vegetable gardening business. She demonstrated potting technique for tomatoes, basil and cayenne peppers. For those not sure if they have a green thumb, Julie offered tips on how to make sure they flourish. She even had her own seedlings and homemade hand salve and lip balm for sale.

Jen Smith is an artist who grew up eating industrial food. When she was a teenager, she endeavored to make a homemade pie, something she could not remember ever having eaten before. A month later, she swept the local county fair with her peach pie! She has been curious about food, how it is grown, the politics of its production and how it is prepared and eaten ever since. For this event, Jen answered questions about pickling, preserving, fermenting and also demonstrated how to make sauerkraut. She is interested in how food might intersect with contemporary art practices and the mundane but important practice of being a person. Many of her pickled and canned goods were sampled by our eager audience, and jars of homemade goods were purchased.