BUTT IN ASS
JULY 2009
NEW YORK CITY
In conjunction with BUTT's alternative NY gay pride celebration BUTT BANG!, on June 22nd, 2009, the BUTT Magazine curated exhibition BUTT IN ASS opened at Asia Song Society (A.S.S.) gallery on New York's Lower East Side, where it ran through July 11th. For this show the gallery was transformed into a mock porn shop, complete with a three unit video-buddy-booth sculpture by Shawn Maximo screening queer video art in lieu of porn. Curated by Michael Bullock (U.S. publisher of BUTT) and Yasmine Dubois-Ziai, BUTT IN ASS went with our tradition of showcasing the artistic gamut from established luminaries to emerging talents and also aimed to bring attention to the NYPD's unjust practice of entrapping gay and bisexual men in sex shops and charging them with prostitution. Guests were invited to both enjoy the video art and also use the booths for their originally intended purpose, creating a safe space for public cruising. Many took advantage of this feature, and we had a great mix of art enthusiasts and horny men coming in and out during the evening hours.
The show featured videos by: Kathryn Garcia, Paul Pfeiffer, Ely Kim, Jean Genet, Paul Lee, Wayne Yung, Kalup Linzy, Slava Mogutin & Brian Kenny, Chris Moukarbel, Julika Rudelius, Shahryar Nashat, Lovett/Codagnone, Nayland Blake, Stewart Marshall and Isaac Julien. (Click here to see video of the show) The installation space was complemented by Michael Magnan's mock-gay porn DVD cases (viewable here) which came with an exclusive BUTT Mix CD created by Magnan as well. The show also featured the work of Chiang Fu, Desi Santiago, and Shawn Maximo. Naturally we had festive and frisky opening and closing night parties.
As a special treat to continue the BUTT Pride festivities we also held a program of secret performances titled DARKROOM. These events were held on June 23rd, 25th, and 26th at midnight in the basement of the ASS gallery. Forty guests were selected at random from BUTT blog readers, but attendees were not told what the performances would be.
Lucky attendees on the first night were surprised to learn that they would be watching actor James Franco's first student film The Feast of Stephen, an extraordinarily homosexual film about an adolescent fantasizing about a group of basketball playing peers. The film was based on the work of gay poet Anthony Hecht, and Franco showed up to introduce the film. Other nights featured an performance by the band Salem, who had played at BUTT BANG! the previous week. Another evening featured elaborate performance by artist Desi Santiago titled, 'Work for Love', which involved two dancers covered in black body paint, a giant balloon that expanded to fill the tiny basement space, and Ladyfag lip-synching to First Choice's classic disco tune 'Dr. Love.' To see video of this performance, click here.
BUTT IN ASS was made possible by the generous support of American Apparel, a long time friend and supporter of the gay community.