Portrait of Ambi Sextrous, Doris Fish (Australia, 1952–1991), acrylic on canvas, 16” x 19”, 1978; Ms. Bob Davis Collection (2012-16), GLBT Historical Society. Untitled, Jerome Caja (1958–1995), mixed media, 5” x 9”, ca. 1980–1990; donated by Gerard Koskovich from the collection of David Bonetti, Art and Artifacts Collection (GLBT-ART), GLBT Historical Society.
DESCRIPTION
In this installment of our “Queeriosity Corner” program series, GLBT Historical Society museum registrar and curatorial specialist Ramón Silvestre and a panel of queer art scholars will present some of the fine artworks in the society’s collections that highlight the creativity, colorful palette and lives of prominent drag artists working at the height of the AIDS crisis. From Doris Fish’s evocative portrait of Ambi Sextrous to the surreal, sometimes grotesque mixed-media artworks of Jerome Caja, this program will examine how genderfuck and drag artists confronted a pandemic through artwork.
“Queeriosity Corner” is a quarterly program series led by Silvestre that showcases treasured physical objects from the archives’ Art and Artifacts collection. Each program in the series explores a few select items in this collection, which includes paintings, sculptures, objects, costumes, drawings, posters, photographs and ephemera, most of which have never been on public display. The series also features conversations with other museum professionals on display and curation best practices, institutional partnerships and related topics, all in delightfully entertaining queer show-and-tell format.
SPEAKERS
Anthony Cianciolo (he/him/his) is a Bay Area artist, curator and filmmaker. Currently he is directing a documentary feature film about Jerome Caja and also manages Caja’s estate through “The Jerome Project” website. He recently collaborated with the GLBT Historical Society and curated the exhibition “Found: The Lost Art of Jerome Caja (May–June, 2021) at Anglim/Trimble gallery. Cianciolo also works in independent film and TV (Sony’s “Venom,” Netflix’s “Sense8” and HBO’s “Looking”). Prior to this, he worked on cutting-edge films that fused animation with live action (“Natural Born Killers,” “Tank Girl,” “Space Jam”) and animated films (“The Iron Giant,” “Osmosis Jones,” “Looney Tunes”). He also helped establish Warner Brothers’s Feature Animation division, where he worked as an art director, technical director, compositor and animator.
Ms. Bob Davis (she/her/hers) is the founder and director of the Louise Lawrence Transgender Archive in Vallejo, California. In the 1990s she served two terms on the GLBT Historical Society Board of Directors. She presented her talk “Glamour, Drag and Death: HIV/AIDS in the Art of Three Drag Queen Painters” at the Archives, Museums and Special Collections conference “Queering Memory 2019” in Berlin and virtually at the University of Victoria’s “Moving Trans History Forward” conference in 2020. She published an article based on the talk in Transgender Studies Quarterly earlier this year. Ms. Bob teaches music at Napa Valley College.
S. Polk (he/him/his) is a Bay Area artist, musician, and global traveler. Currently he is in an experimental synth-pop band called Crumpled Tissu and has been working as an advisor on The Jerome Project since its inception in 2010. He recently helped produce the JEROME & JOAN: Late Night with Joan Jett Blakk (June 19, 2021) at Minnesota Street Projects, which was part of their Juneteenth celebration. Polk was a Music Director, Program Director and DJ at several independent radio stations both in Cleveland, Ohio and San Francisco. He also co-founded the notorious Club Häagen-Dazs in the Castro in the late 1980s. Currently, Polk continues his 20+ year career in the tourism industry, designing, training, and leading trips on all seven continents. He has walked solo across North America and followed years later in 2013 with a more than 3,000-mile hike from Gibraltar to Istanbul. He is currently planning his next major trek.
Ramón Silvestre (he/him/his) is an expert in material culture studies. He previously was a Visiting Fellow at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and has published in many national and international professional journals, including The Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press. He holds a Ph.D. in anthropology and a master’s degree in curatorial and museum studies from the University of Arizona, School of Anthropology. He has conducted fieldwork and museum collections acquisitions among the Kalinga and Ifugao tribes in northern Philippines, the Iban in Indonesia and the Dayak in Borneo.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
This event will take place online. After you register, you will receive a confirmation email with a link and instructions on how to join.
ADMISSION
Free | $5 suggested donation
Register online here: https://bit.ly/3utBo6I
ASL INTERPRETATION
ASL interpretation provided upon request. Please write at least three days in advance of event to leigh@glbthistory.org.
JOIN THE GLBT HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Become a member of the GLBT Historical Society for free museum and program admission, discounts in the museum shop and other perks: www.glbthistory.org/memberships.