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Richard Meyer: SF Queer Subculture & Art History | YBCA — Transcript

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0:00everybody
0:04um
0:06hi I'm nalen Blake and
0:09one thing I'll say is I
0:13I run a graduate program so I have a lot
0:16of classes and I know it's only like the
0:18bad kids that sit in the back of the
0:19room
0:20so take a moment you good kids and
0:24filter on in and fill up the seats here
0:28get comfortable
0:31um
0:32uh Welcome to our
0:37fourth of seven evenings
0:42in conjunction with a free love toolbox
0:47and I just quickly want to say that
0:52the show
0:55is uh really about providing a kind of
1:01meeting place and place of connection
1:04for people
1:06to think about ideas around Liberation
1:10and freedom and sexuality
1:13um and also to honor
1:17um and and explore and hopefully
1:19complicate a little bit the history of
1:23um ybca so it's really a show that could
1:28not have happened
1:29in any other location not only because
1:33of the reference to our neighborhood
1:36um but also to what this place is
1:40administratively and
1:43um and conceptually so I'm really
1:47thrilled and I feel really lucky to have
1:49had the opportunity
1:51um to uh you know be asked to show here
1:56and be able to put the show together
1:59um and uh and particularly to be able to
2:02bring in
2:04all of these people whose work I respect
2:08immensely and who's
2:11projects have done so much to inform my
2:15own way of thinking about making things
2:18and two of those people are going to be
2:20presenting tonight Richard Meyer and
2:24Lolita wolf
2:26um and to just give you an idea of like
2:28how the evening is going to go
2:31um
2:31uh we're going to start out with um
2:35Richard's presentation
2:37um and then we're going to take a quick
2:40break it'll be about
2:43um 10 to 15 minutes while we reconfigure
2:45the space uh
2:47uh for the second performance
2:51so during that time we ask you to hang
2:55out walk around
2:57um and uh I think we will probably be
3:01ending
3:02a bit early I don't think we'll go the
3:04full two hours you never know things
3:06might get crazy
3:08but um but you know I I think we'll I
3:11think it'll be a relatively
3:14um quick paste evening so
3:18um with that I want to uh
3:21give you over to Betty Sue Hertz who is
3:24the chief curator here and the person
3:28responsible for bringing me in
3:31thanks Betty Sue
3:33[Applause]
3:39all right hi um welcome welcome to
3:42Yellow Buena Center for the Arts
3:44welcome to Free Love toolbox and
3:48um to this wonderful evening with
3:51Richard Meyer nayland Lake and Lolita
3:53Wolfe and I um
3:57I'm just going to introduce Richard
3:59Richard Meyer is the Robert and Ruth
4:02Halpern professor in art history at
4:05Stanford University opposed he took up
4:08this past September and we're very very
4:10happy because he's now living in San
4:12Francisco rather than Los Angeles prior
4:15to that he taught for 15 years in the
4:17department of art history at the
4:19University of Southern California where
4:21he also directed the visual studies
4:23graduate certificate program and the
4:26Contemporary project he is the author of
4:29Outlaw representation censorship and
4:32homosexuality in 20th century American
4:34art
4:36which is like a art classic already
4:38which was awarded the Charles Eldridge
4:42prize for outstanding scholarship from
4:44the Smithsonian Museum of American art
4:46last year Richard guest curated the
4:49exhibition naked Hollywood
4:51Ouija in LA
4:53at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los
4:56Angeles and he has two books forthcoming
4:59in early 2013.
5:02what was Contemporary Art which I
5:04remember talking to you about a while
5:06ago so I'm really happy it's coming out
5:09uh published by MIT press and he's also
5:13co-edited with Catherine Lord art and
5:16queer culture which will appear in April
5:18from a fight and press so please
5:21help me to warmly welcome Richard Meyer
5:31thanks Betty Sue and also thanks to
5:34Neyland for doing this beautiful show
5:37and opening it up to various communities
5:41in the way that he has and also to very
5:44Sue in the Urban Wellness Center for
5:46sort of having the vision to um
5:49to make to make such a project come um
5:53become a reality so Neyland I don't know
5:56if Betty Sue told me or nayland did but
5:58someone said that we had to think about
6:00showing Show and Tell and I'm not I'm
6:03not bringing an actual object because I
6:04don't have access to it but if I did I
6:07would be showing in I would be showing
6:09you
6:10um these match boxes from the toolbox
6:13the George Washington leather daddy
6:17um
6:19a whole body
6:22and I just want um oh sorry I just um
6:26wanted to sort of set the stage by
6:29looking at these
6:30sure
6:32can is that better
6:34did you not hear anything I said I'm not
6:35gonna
6:36okay anyway this is my show and tell and
6:39the Talk starts um with a quote from
6:42Walter Benjamin here's the quote
6:45here it becomes evident that the
6:48Hallmark of the new type of researcher
6:50is not the eye for the all-encompassing
6:52whole nor the eye for the comprehensive
6:55context but rather the capacity to be at
6:58home in marginal domains to be at home
7:00in marginal domains that's from an essay
7:02called the rigorous study of art by
7:04Walter Benjamin
7:06now it's my me
7:08um I have always been at home in
7:10marginal domains or rather in the
7:12movement from marginal domains to
7:14mainstream ones and Back Again
7:17a gay sex club I used to know in
7:19Manhattan was located around the corner
7:21from the headquarters of the college Art
7:23Association the CAA the leading
7:26Professional Organization for art
7:28historians and artists in the U.S
7:30whenever I walked past either the CAA or
7:34the sex club I thought at least for a
7:36moment of the other institution there
7:39was something peculiar and pleasurable
7:41in this juxtaposition the secret
7:43association between the space of
7:45academic art history which in a way was
7:48one of my spaces and that of queer sex
7:51culture which was another of the spaces
7:54that I
7:56inhabited inhabit
7:59if I'm lucky I sometimes I sometimes
8:03think of the proximity between the CAA
8:06and the club as a metaphor for the
8:08relation between art history and queer
8:10studies for the ways in which each field
8:12might unexpect unexpectedly pierce the
8:15other's terrain how in a other words
8:17might the art historian's attention to
8:20visual images inflect the critical study
8:23of sexuality and how conversely might a
8:26scholarly focus on sexuality shift the
8:29concerns and commitments of art history
8:30so these are the sorts of questions that
8:33I've been concerned with in different
8:34ways for a long time and that I think
8:38uh speak to or or are inspired by
8:41artists like Neyland and artists and
8:43specifically by neyland's work
8:47when Walter Benjamin wrote the rigorous
8:49study of Art in 1933 he was almost
8:52certainly not thinking of homosexuality
8:54as one of the marginal domains to which
8:56the new type of art historical
8:58researcher should attend but Benjamin
9:01was thinking of various forms of visual
9:03production in his case architectural
9:05drawings and Stage designs that had been
9:08marginalized within the field of art
9:09history in favor of painting and
9:11sculpture
9:12and she was arguing for a scholarly
9:15method that would include what he called
9:17an esteem for the insignificant and
9:19esteem for anonymous works and
9:21overlooked details for the Obscure and
9:24the non-canonical so that's where my
9:25show and tell of the matchboxes from the
9:27toolbox comes in
9:29like the archivist of queer history the
9:31art of Neyland Blake sorry the art of
9:33nail and Blake pays loving attention to
9:36overlooked materials and outdated
9:37references to signs and messages
9:41this is sort of weird because I'm
9:43showing you like things that are in the
9:45room I didn't know that I would be
9:46actually lecturing in this space so um I
9:49thought we would be like I'm really
9:51happy the whole talk will work much
9:53better in this space but I had sort of
9:55imagined an auditorium with none no art
9:57and none of nailin's Art in the anyway
10:00um so you can look at the image or you
10:03can look at the at the walls uh
10:06uh like the or like the archivist of
10:10queer history Neyland pays loving
10:11attention to overlooked materials and
10:13outdated references to signs and
10:15messages to codes and clubs that while
10:19often intensely pleasurable were rarely
10:21meant to be fully public or universally
10:24accessible in what follows I look more
10:27closely at the mural that lies at the
10:29heart of Blake's brilliant installation
10:31and that the history that precedes its
10:34latest Revival here at the Yerba Buena
10:36Center for the Arts
10:37and I have to apologize because if those
10:40of you I wasn't able to attend Gail
10:41rubin's lecture I was not in town so I'm
10:44hoping if those of you who were at that
10:46lecture
10:47um I'm hoping that I'm not going to be
10:50saying the same thing or if it is the
10:51same thing I hope that you really liked
10:53what she said
10:54um
10:56a gay motorcycle bar
11:03can you guys hear me okay now a gay
11:06motorcycle bar called the toolbox opened
11:08in 1962 at the corner of 4th and
11:10Harrison streets
11:12in San Francisco
11:14popular and popular among the city's
11:16growing number of gay bikers and leather
11:18men the bar often had a row of
11:20motorcycles parked alongside Harrison
11:22Street such as in this photo by Henry
11:24lalou
11:26um who actually took photographs of a
11:28huge range of different gay bars and
11:30spaces in um in 60s San Francisco
11:34um
11:35uh so even from outside then passers-by
11:39and potential patrons could glean a
11:41sense of the bar's appeal and preferred
11:43clientele
11:44in 1964 when Life Magazine published an
11:47article entitled homosexuality in
11:50America the lead photograph for the
11:52story spread across two pages was an
11:55interior shot of the toolbox
11:58and the subheading reads a secret world
12:01grows open and Bolder Society is forced
12:04to look at it and to tr and try to
12:06understand it
12:08the picture featured about a dozen
12:10patrons of the bar almost all of whom
12:13wear black leather
12:15biker jackets sometimes accessorated
12:17with still silver-studded leather Caps
12:19or Black sunglasses several of the men
12:22hold bottles of beer no mixed drinks or
12:25cocktail glasses here a young man in the
12:28right mid-ground enters the bar from the
12:30street thereby piercing its dark
12:32interior with a blast of a bright
12:35daylight
12:36a mural on the far wall of the bar
12:39portrays a long row of men in black
12:41jackets against an unmodulated white
12:43backdrop a couple of the men wear
12:45collared shirts and narrow black ties
12:47one sports a helmet and goggles
12:51um
13:03according to the logic of the mural and
13:06so they are leaving
13:08um
13:09like the real men standing beneath the
13:12mural uh the men represented in the
13:14painting Orient their bodies and gazes
13:16in a range of different directions the
13:19visual logic of life's photograph sets
13:21up a kind of call in response between
13:23the figures in the mural and the patrons
13:25of the bar between the clearly resolved
13:28if two-dimensional men in the upper half
13:30of the photograph
13:33and the three-dimensional if rather
13:35shadowy men below and the historian
13:38Martin Meeker who's who's here tonight
13:40actually and who's written the most
13:42extensive account of the taking of this
13:46Photograph and of the impact of this
13:48image on a whole generation of gay and
13:51lesbian um
13:53Americans who in effect were inspired to
13:57move to San Francisco or at least to
13:59think about the fantasy of or of the
14:02destination of San Francisco as Queer as
14:04a result of this image but um but that
14:06what I was going to tell you something
14:07that Martin discovered and now it's
14:12um if I read okay
14:14um
14:16oh yes what Martin one of the things he
14:18says was that the men were sort of
14:20because at this point if you were
14:21rendered visible in Life Magazine as a
14:23homosexual you might
14:26um lose your job be disinherited you you
14:28know you would be uh considered criminal
14:31and so the men were basically promised
14:33that they wouldn't be visible that the
14:35photograph would be shadowy and as it
14:38turned out because the photograph was so
14:39large they were actually more
14:40recognizable than men uh in the
14:42photograph than had been anticipated or
14:45then they'd been led to believe they
14:46would be and generally and you'll see
14:49some other photographs from this I'll
14:51show some other photographs from this
14:52spread
14:53um
14:54generally the homosexual the figure of
14:56the homosexual which is Martin Meeker
14:58points out in life Magazine's uh account
15:01in 1964 is always a white and male
15:04figure never female or a person of color
15:06but the figure of the homosexual is
15:08almost always seen in silhouette in
15:10Shadow or from behind very rarely do you
15:13get a head-on
15:15um well-lit uh picture and um that's
15:19just something I wanted to do put out
15:21there from the beginning
15:23um
15:23the mural okay the visual okay the mural
15:26was painted in 1963 by Chuck Arnett a
15:29San Francisco artist who was also a
15:31bartender at the toolbox and I'm just
15:34showing you here two other images bar
15:37related uh works that by Chuck Arnett um
15:40this is like a little
15:57uh
16:13in 1966 and are now
16:27an artist whose work is going to be for
16:29sale at the auction so just to give you
16:31a sense that he that Arnett among among
16:34a host of artists
16:36is very involved with the bar world in
16:40the 60s and the leather world and it
16:41isn't that he just did this mural he did
16:44other Farm murals and also other kind
16:46posters and promotional materials for
16:48the bar scene and it's also interesting
16:50to me that he worked at
16:53um uh at the bar itself
16:57um
16:58um okay uh
17:04Arnett in fact appears in the Life
17:07photograph so this figure
17:18Arnett in fact appears
17:21in the Life photograph
17:24um although life therefore features both
17:27Arnette and his mural the artist is
17:30never identified by name either in the
17:32photographic caption or in the
17:33accompanying article and again this
17:35could be in part life's policy of of
17:38sort of protecting
17:40um
17:42um the the the subjects
17:44um photographed and it but it was also
17:46very common
17:48um one of the earliest gay bars was
17:49called the no-name bar and it was common
17:51to sort of want to avoid for legal and
17:54social and criminal you know possible uh
17:57criminal reasons avoid being named or
18:00identified as a homosexual even uh to
18:02the outside world even as one was
18:04circulating very freely within uh the
18:07confines of the subcultural of various
18:10subcultural spaces okay
18:13um even as he stands Among The Men Who
18:15patronize the toolbox Arnett poses
18:18beneath the painted representation of
18:20those men he has created for their
18:22viewing pleasure however unacknowledged
18:24at the time the presence of our net in
18:27the photograph adds another layer of
18:29meaning to the dialogue that unfolds
18:31within it
18:32in 1971 in the midst of the Gay
18:35Liberation movement the toolbox closed
18:38in 1975 the building that housed the bar
18:41was demolished for some time after the
18:44raising of the bar and the amount of
18:46time is various accounts range from a
18:49few weeks to as much as two years but so
18:52I don't but for some amount of time
18:53after the demolition of the bar a single
18:56wall of the original structure was left
18:58standing the wall on which Arnett's
19:01mural was painted and actually this um
19:04where the the image that nail and Blake
19:07has used for his Recreation of the mural
19:09you could see is a detail it's this it's
19:12the mural in Ruins
19:14um it's this it's taken from this or a
19:16similar photograph probably by Michael
19:18Kelly
19:20um or maybe by Henry Lulu I think the
19:22caption said
19:23um
19:24for a time after the demolition a single
19:27wall with the mural on it was uh left
19:29standing a 1975 picture by local
19:33photographer an occasional toolbox
19:35Patron Michael Kelly shows the mural
19:38still marvelously intact beside an
19:40expanse of concrete blocks and collapsed
19:43metal beams of rubble and rocks and
19:46Architectural debris Arnett's mural
19:49intended for the interior of a gay bar
19:51has unwittingly become a public work of
19:54art
19:54that is no less visible to passing
19:56motorists and pedestrians than say the
19:59Harrison street sign behind the detritus
20:01strewn lot on which the bar once stood
20:03you can
20:05and I kind of want you to remember all
20:07those motorcycles parked along Harrison
20:09Street in the 1962 photograph I showed
20:12earlier
20:14um it's kind of the
20:16um the ghost of or the the legacy of the
20:20toolbox and the men and actually some
20:22women who patronized it
20:25um Arnett's mural oh I said that already
20:27okay it is almost as though the process
20:29of architectural just Demolition and
20:32reconstruction has itself paused before
20:35Arnett's mural as if in hesitation or
20:37momentarily momentary refusal to tear
20:41down the picture and I believe that what
20:43stands at Fourth and Harrison now is a
20:45Whole Foods I believe so there seems to
20:47be a certain
20:49um
20:50I don't want to call it poetic license
20:52but a certain
20:53um sort of something very characteristic
20:55of our own moment
20:57um in in culture that that where the
20:59toolbox one stood is now a Whole Foods I
21:02am in um I am an admitted latecomer to
21:05the story of the toolbox mural by the
21:07time I moved to San Francisco in 1988 so
21:09anyway this is not important but I lived
21:11here during graduate school so this is
21:13my second time living in San Francisco
21:14but anyway when I moved here in 1988 and
21:17and actually shortly after I moved here
21:19I met nalen Blake um who was living here
21:21at the time too
21:22both the bar and the and its mural were
21:25long gone even though nayland and I were
21:27here the bar the toolbox and the mural
21:29were gone by the time I saw Michael
21:31Kelley's photograph in 1998 10 years
21:34later a number of other queer Scholars
21:36namely Gail Rubin Martin Meeker Willie
21:39Walker and the writer Jack fritcher had
21:42already excavated the history of the
21:44toolbox and its mural
21:47I do not regret my belatedness however
21:49because the prior work of these writers
21:51has created an ongoing dialogue about
21:53queer history one in which Arnett's
21:56mural life's article and Kelly's
21:58photograph also participate it is a
22:01history which remains ongoing
22:03and I'm showing you here the cover of
22:05Martin meeker's 2006 book contacts
22:08desired which traces the history of gay
22:10and lesbian communication networks in
22:12San Francisco from the 40s through the
22:1470s and includes as I mentioned uh
22:16groundbreaking chapter on the life
22:19um layout not just the the toolbox mural
22:22but the whole layout and its impact on
22:23readers and
22:25um Proto gay and lesbian subjects at the
22:28time
22:29um and that dialogue now includes
22:31nailin's work here's a picture of nalen
22:33working on
22:35um free love toolbox and it also
22:38includes a still ongoing circulation of
22:41the image this is a photograph I snapped
22:43yesterday in autoerotica which is a shop
22:46on 18th Street near Castro that
22:49specializes in vintage porn and gay
22:51memorabilia and so here is the Life
22:54Magazine photograph of
22:56um the men in the the bar patrons in the
22:59toolbox beneath the mural now reproduced
23:03and frame aimed in this shop on on 18th
23:06Street
23:07and they actually I invited the guys who
23:10the owner of the shop to tonight's
23:12lecture but he's anyway he didn't want
23:14to come
23:15um
23:18according to Jack fritcher the
23:19appearance of the toolbox photograph in
23:22Life Magazine marked a crucial moment a
23:24kind of collective coming to
23:25Consciousness for gay viewers in 1964.
23:28this is a quote from Pritcher thousands
23:31of queers in small towns who thought
23:33they were the only in the world
23:35suddenly saw compliments of life that
23:38there was an alternative homo masculine
23:40style and actually this issue of a homo
23:43masculine as opposed to a Nelly or
23:45effeminate gay male or male style of
23:49homosexuality is a very important part
23:50of the story which I don't have time to
23:52get into but I think is is interesting
23:54and maybe anyway we can talk about it or
23:57think about it later
23:59um
24:00Martin Meeker has similarly argued that
24:02life's coverage of quote the gay world
24:04of San Francisco had the effect of
24:06advertising the city and the its
24:08available resources to many an isolated
24:10homosexual and in many cases the
24:13advertisement was alluring enough to
24:14encourage them to want to move to the
24:16city end quote that the photograph
24:19should have galvanized gay readers to
24:21move to San Francisco is not without a
24:24certain irony given that life's 1964
24:26article insisted on homosexuality as
24:29pathetic and disgraceful listen for
24:31example to the Magazine's description of
24:34the patrons of the toolbox so this is
24:36from the um
24:37oops this is from the uh one of the
24:41captions or no it's actually from the
24:42article itself where they're taught the
24:44the writer is talking about The Men Who
24:46patronize the toolbox
24:49um these brawny young men in their
24:52leather caps jackets and pants are
24:54practicing homosexuals men who turn to
24:57other men for affection they are part of
24:59what they call the gay World which is
25:02actually a sad and often sordid world
25:04end quote the anonymous writer of this
25:07passage aims to undo any sense of the
25:09gay world as a pleasurable space of
25:11difference by insisting that such a
25:13world must be sad and often sordid in a
25:16similar similar rhetorical maneuver
25:18later in the article the apparent
25:20butchness of the men at the toolbox is
25:22revealed as just so much fopish
25:24premeditation quote this is from the
25:27article the efforts of these homosexuals
25:29to appear manly is obsessive in the
25:32rakish angle of the K of the caps in the
25:35thumbs boldly hooked in belts and
25:37unquote while these men may look like
25:40bikers and tough guys they are life
25:42assures its readership just a group of
25:44Nelly homosexuals whose manliness must
25:47be choreographed down to the last thumb
25:49gesture
25:51other photographs in the same article
25:53underscore the flamboyant problem posed
25:55by the male homosexual and as I
25:56mentioned all the homosexuals in Life
25:58magazine in 1964 are male and white so
26:01far as we can tell from the shadowy or
26:04or rear view that we get of them but
26:06anyway other photographs in the same
26:07article underscore the flamboyant
26:09problem of the male homosexual weather
26:11he circulates in Pershing Square or
26:13Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles in
26:15the village in New York City or south of
26:17Market in San Francisco and those are
26:19the three cities that are featured
26:21prominently in the article and it's a
26:24the article becomes almost a kind of
26:25tour of the gay worlds of these
26:27different cities this is part of the
26:29tour of New York takes us to the park in
26:32Washington Square and this photograph
26:34which is captioned as follows
26:38fluffy sweater young men
26:41stroll that's why I'm wearing a fluffy
26:43um
26:44jacket tonight
26:46two fluffy sweated young men
26:49stroll in New York City ignoring the
26:52stare of a straight couple and straight
26:54is in scare quotes flagrant homosexuals
26:58are unabashed by reactions of shock
27:00perplexity disgust end quote
27:03the homosexual as I mentioned is almost
27:06always shown from behind or in
27:08silhouette and in this picture therefore
27:10what we see most conspicuously is not
27:12the flamboyance of the gay couple but
27:14the homophobia of the straight man and
27:16women woman who face the camera so in a
27:18way I like to think of this Photograph
27:20as really kind of of the straight couple
27:22and kind of about their perplexity shock
27:25and disgust and in a way about life
27:27Magazine's own perplexity shotgun
27:30disgust in the face of um the gay world
27:34um the gay world of lost so this is part
27:36of the gay world of New York and the gay
27:37world of Los Angeles for its part is
27:40first represented by an image of an
27:41attempt of attempted police entrapment
27:43uh the caption reads a policeman in
27:45tight pants sorry a policeman in tight
27:49pants disguise Waits on a Hollywood
27:51Street to be solicited by homosexuals
27:53cruising by in cars and so there's one
27:56of the cars cruising by presumably with
27:58a homosexual inside who's going to
28:00solicit
28:02um this tight pant disguised police
28:05officer
28:06I did uh I didn't know that tight pants
28:08were a disguise but I guess if you're a
28:10straight police officer or supposed
28:12whatever in 1964 that um and you're and
28:15anyway um
28:17uh later in the article
28:19we are offered a shot of the so-called
28:24frantic hour when homosexuals face their
28:27last chance for a pickup that night and
28:30um this is uh
28:42um
28:44but it's only Life magazine that sort of
28:48renders this the Frantic hour it seems
28:50to be although we've all been there at
28:51that hour or I don't
28:54I don't know if frantic is exactly the
28:56word but certainly it can be stressful
28:59um
29:05I just didn't know they were a disguise
29:07their time
29:09um
29:09I thought they were the cop's own pants
29:11that he had but
29:13a final aspect and I'm going to sort of
29:16um
29:17conclude with uh pretty sort of with
29:20this part of the story I have a few more
29:21pages but a final aspect of the toolbox
29:23story that just that deserves discussion
29:25in this context involves the visitation
29:28of leather men to the site of the
29:29demolished bar so
29:32um this is the oops this is I'm showing
29:34you the Life Magazine mural
29:36um but you could also think about
29:38um the toolbox in ruins in the 1970s
29:41according to Gail Rubin quote when the
29:44building that housed the toolbox was
29:45torn down for redevelopment old patrons
29:48came by to get bricks to keep as
29:50mementos Reuben's account of bar patrons
29:53returning to the now demolished toolbox
29:56to claim a material remnant of the bar
29:58might be taken as a metaphor for the
30:00practice of writing queer history or of
30:03making queer art a practice that
30:05requires the historian or the artist to
30:07receive to retrieve bits or bricks of a
30:10past that can never be fully
30:12reconstructed or recovered one of the
30:14problems in tracing the history of
30:16homosexuality writes the art historian
30:18Jonathan Weinberg is that it is a
30:20history that was never meant to be
30:22written
30:23in order to trace or write such a
30:25history we must be willing to look at
30:27places in places and add pictures that
30:30are not properly within the domain of
30:31conventional scholarly practice the
30:34theater scholar David Roman who's also
30:36my boyfriend has argued that writing the
30:39history of queer culture means
30:40rethinking what counts as historical
30:42evidence and documentation as Roman sees
30:46it some of the most Salient traces of
30:48queer experience are embedded quote in
30:50oral history cultural memory social
30:52ritual communal folklore and local
30:55performance media that do not rely on
30:58print culture for their preservation
31:00because this archive often exists
31:02outside of official culture it is
31:04frequently undervalued or even derided
31:06end quote Roman proposes that we attend
31:09more closely to queer legacies of
31:11performance and community-based art to
31:13the ephemera and everyday life of gay
31:15and lesbian subjects and I think of
31:17nalen's work and of this show in
31:18particular as very much in that same
31:20spirit
31:21the context in which I initially
31:23encountered the story of the toolbox
31:25Echoes the sort of archival practice
31:28that Roman has in mind I first saw
31:30Michael Kelley's photograph and I know
31:32this is very difficult to make out but
31:33there's a this is um that that Henry
31:36Lulu photograph I showed you the Life
31:38Magazine photograph and then some other
31:41images where I think the men are
31:43identified above in um the men who are
31:46standing in the bar or the wait
31:54um I first saw this is a shot of a show
31:56called queering kinky danger that was uh
31:59art of San Francisco's leather SM Kink
32:02worlds that was organized at the gay and
32:04lesbian what was then called the gay and
32:05lesbian Historical Society of Northern
32:07California by an archivist now deceased
32:10an amazing person named Willie Walker
32:13who drew together some 200 Visual and
32:16material objects from matchbook covers
32:18to psychedelic paintings produced by and
32:21for San Francisco's queer sex culture
32:23from the 1930s to the 1990s the
32:26exhibition included prints drawings
32:28photographs paintings and sculptures
32:31that once decorated the walls of local
32:33bars clubs and bath houses as well as
32:36posters buttons greeting cards
32:37matchbooks t-shirts and Banners created
32:40for Gay and Lesbian clubs parades
32:42parties contests auctions and orgies
32:45handcrafted or otherwise noteworthy
32:47examples of fetish gear and S M
32:49paraphernalia such as a purple and black
32:51flogger with Oak tantan males and
32:54monster knots on the handle were also
32:56featured within the exhibition I'm sorry
32:57I don't have a picture of the flogger
32:59but I do have um
33:01a picture of the the leather um this is
33:04the plastic
33:22poster that I showed you by
33:24Chuck Barnett which is
33:32a motorcycle clubs a motorcycle clubs
33:35and the warlocks was actually the first
33:37motorcycle game motorcycle club to
33:39include women in its membership
33:42so um
33:44so I'm just trying to give you the
33:46smallest Taste of this show and thinking
33:49and trying to revive uh queering kinky
33:51danger in the context of free love
33:53toolbox
33:55work such as the David from the Phoebe's
33:57bar or the mural from the toolbox were
33:59created to Adorn the interior of gay
34:01bars not to be preserved in an archive
34:03or presented in an exhibition at a
34:05historical society and yet it is the
34:08unlikely introduction of these objects
34:10into archives
34:11libraries historical societies and
34:14museums or art spaces that allows them
34:17to be seen and studied in the present
34:21in some cases the material
34:23modesty of the objects at issue a set of
34:26Matchbox from the toolbox for example
34:28one of which features George Washington
34:30father of our country as a leather daddy
34:33retroactively imbues them with
34:35historical value and particularity as
34:37Roman suggests studying the queer past
34:40means retooling the methods of scholarly
34:42analysis and description in the face of
34:45an object as Tiny yet Unforgettable as a
34:47matchbox as a matchbook portrait of
34:51George Washington as uh as a Leatherman
34:53in light of the limited exhibition space
34:56he had to work with Willie Walker
34:58decided to extend queering kinky danger
35:00into the archival storage area of the
35:03Historical Society at the end of one
35:05long aisle of storage boxes filled with
35:08queer periodicals scrapbooks
35:09correspondence and ephemera so this is
35:12actually the storage of what was then
35:13the historical society and at the end of
35:16that aisle
35:18um stood a large painting of a man in
35:20mirrored sunglasses displaying his
35:22muscular body and exposed penis Walker's
35:25catalog text describes the original
35:26context for which this painting was
35:28produced in 19th quote in 1979 what had
35:32been Jack's Turkish baths was
35:34redecorated and became the Bulldog baths
35:37it featured among other things two tiers
35:39of jail cells a stand-alone bird cage I
35:42don't know exactly how the bird cage
35:44would be used but
35:45um and an entire semi truck in a garage
35:48like setting the owners hired artist m
35:51Brooks Jones to paint a massive mural on
35:53sheetrock of various fantastic sexual
35:55scenes when the Bulldog closed in 1984
35:58several gay historians rescued the
36:00panels which made up this mural
36:03and here I'm showing you an ad for the
36:05Bulldog baths from drummer magazine in
36:071979 and then some on location shots I
36:16have
36:18um
36:20on the jail uh cell well uh bars okay so
36:25I'm just this is um the end now
36:28um
36:29uh so several uh several gay historians
36:32uh and I'm showing you okay thanks to
36:34the Salvage operation of a group of
36:36queer Scholars and that group included
36:38Gail Rubin and Willie Walker
36:41um the Bulldog panels from the Bulldog
36:43bath murals uh have survived survived to
36:46resurface and queering kinky Danger
36:48pictures that once appeared
36:50sorry pictures that once appeared at the
36:53end of the narrow aisles of a gay bath
36:55house now appeared at the end of the
36:57narrow Isles of an archival storage
36:59space as if to make that transition
37:01explicit an illuminated sign reading
37:04lockers there also retrieved from the
37:07Bulldog baths extended from the
37:09uppermost shelf of the storage racks and
37:13in a sense those archival boxes in those
37:15racks were lockers but they enclosed not
37:18articles of clothing but documents of
37:21Social and sexual history seeing the
37:24panel from the Bulldog baths beside all
37:26the boxes stacked beside it beside the
37:30Stacked set of storage boxes it occurred
37:32to me that the panel that from the
37:34painting from the mural could never fit
37:36inside one of those boxes
37:39after queering kinky danger closed in
37:41May 1988 several of the remnants from
37:44the Bulldog baths mural including the
37:46half-naked man in sunglasses were left
37:48in place that is they were left out on
37:50the walls
37:51they were after all already in storage
37:55the proximity of the painting and the
37:57archival boxes next to it embodies for
38:01me the relation but also the tension
38:04between historical preservation and
38:06queer self queer culture if the naked
38:09man from the bathhouse mural will never
38:11fit inside a storage box neither will he
38:14ever conform to the traditional
38:16Protocols of Museum exhibition or
38:18academic study and so one of the things
38:20I wanted to think about in closing was
38:21how do we historicize or remember a
38:25place like the Bulldog baths and
38:26actually the Uptown
38:28historic district has erected a plaque
38:31at 130 Turk Street which I thought was
38:32kind of amazing only in San Francisco
38:35where
38:36where in honor of the Bulldog baths but
38:38for my money this um
38:42promotional
38:47for two bucks
38:51to it's just as good or maybe better a
38:54kind of testimonial to to the history of
38:58the baths
38:59um
39:00if the naked man from the bath house
39:02mural will never fit inside a storage
39:05box neither will he ever conform to the
39:07traditional Protocols of Museum
39:08exhibition or academic study he demands
39:11other forms of attention and display
39:13forms which nail and Blake and free love
39:16toolbox help us to imagine and Achieve
39:19thanks
39:31so um I promise that did you maybe maybe
39:34if there's five minutes do you think
39:37if any questions questions are actually
39:40um my favorite part of something like
39:42this because I learn I know what I said
39:44but I don't know what you heard and when
39:46you ask a question I get a sense of what
39:47actually was heard
39:49so just anything at all
39:51just give me something yes daylight
39:59okay
40:15those are friends
40:18oh wow
40:44although I remember Martin I don't mean
40:46to put you on the spot but I remember
40:47when Martin was working on the
40:48dissertation or the book I think that it
40:50was fairly challenging right I thought
40:52to get the rights to reproduce those
40:54photographs
41:43um
42:12and you can also oh sorry
42:15you could also buy like I did on eBay
42:17um the issue although I think it's now
42:19getting more expensive as more people
42:22learned about it right
42:28well thank you for listening and I look
42:31forward to to now being part of the
42:33audience for the performance I think
42:34we're going to take a break right about
42:3615 minutes
42:56or if you
43:01so
43:03um
43:17as
43:19an artist
43:24um
43:34all the hours

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