Lesbian artist Carrie Moyer’s exhibition of paintings, “Hail Comrade!,” at Debs & Co., NY (closed January 11), was stunning. Taking the 1968 student uprisings in Paris as its formal point of departure, these sumptuously colored paintings combined the graphics of the student propaganda with that of other symbols of non-conformity (the lesbian symbol, Black Power fist, etc), to create visually complex images that function as a “call to arms against the rising tide of conformity.”
Other must-see shows include Louise Fishman’s exhibition of new paintings at Cheim & Read, NY (opens April 22); Honolulu-based photographer, Gaye Chan, has two upcoming shows, one at the University of Texas at El Paso (February 6-March 9); the other at the Houston Center for Photography (February 28-March 13). The globe-trotting, lesbian performance artist-cum-sexologist, Dr. Annie Sprinkle, will have a one-woman show at Art @ Large, New York’s only erotic gallery (September 4-27). Mark your calendars, too, for the group exhibition, “Depth & Distance,” curated by the oh-so Happy Hyder of Lesbians in the Visual Arts in San Francisco (Spring 2003).
If you’re in San Francisco on March 28th and 29th, you can catch the fabulously sexy performance artist, Carmelita Tropicana, at the Brava Theatre. In October, Tropicana finished a sold-out run in San Francisco and New York of “Single Wet Female,” co-written with Marga Gomez. This lesbian thriller, which featured simulated nudity and drag king extraordinaire, Murray Hill, via satellite, has been nominated for a GLAAD award in Outstanding Theatre. The dueling divas, Tropicana and Gomez, will reunite with yet another lesbian Latina, Monica Palacios, in a comedy marathon at San Francisco’s Queer Arts Festival, June 13-15th. And if you live in D.C. check out Gomez’s stand-up routine at the Titan Bar on January 26th. She’ll also be premiering her new show “Intimate Details” at La Mama Theatre, NY, January 30 to February 16.
And another queer premiere in NY, at P.S. 122, is “Trick Saddle” a lesbian, multimedia extravaganza, described by its makers, Jen Rogers and Clove Galilee, as “the wild west meets ‘queer as folk’.” (January 24 to February 9)
The fabulous Holly Hughes is busy working on her next show, a collaboration with Lois Weaver of Split Britches, called “The Making of Tammy Whynot,” the story of Lois’ alter ego, who had all the wigs, mobile homes, and grammies any girl could want but gave it all up to become a lesbian performance artist. Hughes is also co-writing a book with Carmelita Tropicana called “Some Like It Wow” (Michigan, 2004), a history of the first ten years of WOW, a lesbian theatre space in NYC, home for wayward girls, founded by Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw, and training ground for the “Five Lesbian Brothers,” Holly Hughes, Carmelita Tropicana, Madeleine Olnek, and Anna Maria Simo.
Catherine Opie, the proud new mother of Oliver Hill Opie, is now teaching at UCLA, and is working on landscapes of surfers on foggy mornings. I can’t wait for what will inevitably be as breathtaking a show as her icehouses!
Photographer-Goddess Tee Corinne has been busy writing lesbian-focused encyclopedia entries and working on small books documenting lesbian history.
Susan Stryker, self-proclaimed “lesbian soccer mom” and Director of the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco, is directing, producing and co-writing (with Victor Silverman) an hour-long documentary, called “Looking for Compton’s” about transgender sex-workers rioting against police harrassment at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neigborhood in August 1966 -- three years before Stonewall. Watch for this invaluable contribution to LGBT history at 2004 film festivals.
Award-winning filmmaker and director, Ela Troyano, known for her queer work -- from “A to B” (2002) with Ricardo Bracho to “Latin Boys Go to Hell” (1997) -- is currently shooting a feature-length film on the gay and lesbian icon, La Lupe, the Cuban stage diva who rose to fame with the onset of the Cuban Revolution in 1960, and renowned for her emotional performances in which she would beat herself and tear her hair out in agony over failed love affairs. I can relate to that.
Barbara Hammer will be featured in the Modern Masters of Cinema series at The Castro Theater in San Francisco on March 13th at 8 pm. She’ll show clips of films from her 35-year career. Or, if you happen to live in, or want to visit, Melbourne, Australia, check out her retrospective, March 17-19, at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival.
Hey New Yorkers, the talented Ann P. Meredith will be discussing her work and screening several shorts at New York University on March 12th at 7 pm, in a program titled, “I, A Witness.”
I hope that some of you managed to make it out to the Guildhall Museum in East Hampton, L.I., for the blockbuster exhibition, “The Personal & Political: The Women’s Art Movement, 1969-1975,” which featured the work of several lesbian artists including Kate Millett, Nancy Grossman, Louise Fishman, Joan Snyder, Michelle Stewart, Harmony Hammond, and Barbara Hammer. The show’s content proved far too radical for Guildhall and they fired Simon Taylor (the curator of the exhibition), despite the fact that the show received favorable reviews in the New York Times and elsewhere. Oh feminism and lesbianism, when will you cease to be so threatening? [Watch for other reviews of this exhibition by Cassandra Langer in the Art Journal and Carey Lovelace in Art in America.]
Okay, that’s it for now. I hope to see you all at CAA! Please send ideas for the next edition of this column to me with the subject heading “dyke notes.”
Maura Reilly