From “Eulogy for the Dyke Bar” by Macon Reed
Artist-Run
Ocean Terrace Hotel
7410 Ocean Terrace, Room: 219
Tuesday December 1 – Sunday December 6
VIP PREVIEW: 5 PM to 10 PM Tuesday, December 1st. RSVP NOW.
MIAMI NEW YORK, 2015 – Art F City is pleased to announce the debut of Fine Art Gallery at the SATELLITE art show Artist-Run. Located inside a derelict hotel, Fine Art Gallery will transform room 219 into F.A.G. Bar, an installation and homage to shuttered gay dive bars across the country. These closures occur for a myriad of reasons, but increasingly, they are the result of gentrifying forces. F.A.G Bar highlights the work of six artists who make work that either specifically addresses these concerns, or would simply find a good home in one of these spaces. These artists include: Edie Fake, John Criscitello, Matthew Leifheit, Macon Reed, Rachel Stern, and Wickerham & Lomax.
Edie Fake, John Criscitello, Macon Reed directly address the subject of changing communities and the gay bar: Fake presents gender neutral bathroom signs and his zine, Memory Palaces, includes reproductions of closed and imagined gay bars in Chicago. John Criscitello similarly address changing cities. His posters “We Came Here To Get Away From You” speak to the changing demographics of Capital Hill in Seattle by protesting what he sees as the dilution of his neighborhood’s identity. Meanwhile, Reed’s Dyke Bar signs and dartboard are part of a larger installation called “Eulogy for The Dyke Bar”, pays homage to closed Dyke Bars. This installation will be presented in full at Pulse this spring.
Taking a different approach, a karaoke-inspired video by Wickerham & Lomax chronicles a night out on the town at gay dive bars in Baltimore while critiquing the conventions of performance art. Such a night would only be made better with Rachel Stern’s “Get Lucky” coins, currency intended to help users get laid. And chronicling the history of gay sex life both inside the bar and out, Matthew Leifheit’s large-scale reproductions of of male shower scenes from the ’30s originally clipped from magazines by George Platt Lynes show the long history of gay life in America.
F.A.G. bar is the inaugural exhibition in our new project space and curatorial platform, Fine Art Gallery, “F.A.G.” Fine Art Gallery will be primarily based out of Brooklyn in the Art F City Offices, but we kick off our programing here in Miami at Tiger Strikes Asteroid’s Satellite Show, Artist-Run, during Art Basel Miami Beach 2015.
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