(ONLY in NYC) Go See Sadie Barnette: The New Eagle Creek Saloon with Madison Moore: Nightlife In Residence January 18–March 6
Sadie Barnette, in collaboration with The Studio Museum in Harlem, re-imagines the New Eagle Creek Saloon. As the first Black-owned gay bar in San Francisco it offered a safe space for the multiracial queer community. Marginalized in other social spaces throughout the city, the artist’s father Rodney Barnette ( the founder of the Compton, CA chapter of the Black Panther Party) ran the bar between 1990-1993.
The artist’s first East Coast institutional presentation of The New Eagle Creek Saloon will come into lyrical and urgent intersection with madison moore, cultural critic, DJ, Assistant Professor in the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, and author of author of Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric who, over the course of Barnette’s exhibition, will be in-residence with The Kitchen. Guided by moore, for the first time in The Kitchen’s history, the institution will launch a nightlife and club culture residency, thinking deeply about the ways in which queer space has been impacted by city change and gentrification through and beyond New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood. During the run of the exhibition, Barnette’s installation will be activated by sound and DJ sets, performances, and talks.
The importance of this cultural undertaking almost can’t be understated as more and more gay bars/nightlife spaces, queer places are closing. To that end, the following book makes an argument for a certain kind of vanishing queer history.
Read: Gay Bar by Jeremy Atherton Lin
One of the New York Times Critics’ Top Books of 2021
From the publisher:
From the Publisher: Strobing lights and dark rooms; throbbing house and drag queens on counters; first kisses, last call: the gay bar has long been a place of solidarity and sexual expression–whatever your scene, whoever you’re seeking. But in urban centers around the world, they are closing, a cultural demolition that has Jeremy Atherton Lin wondering: What was the gay bar? How have they shaped him? And could this spell the end of gay identity as we know it?
In Gay Bar, the author embarks upon a transatlantic tour of the hangouts that marked his life, with each club, pub, and dive revealing itself to be a palimpsest of queer history. In prose as exuberant as a hit of poppers and dazzling as a disco ball, he time-travels from Hollywood nights in the 1970s to a warren of cruising tunnels built beneath London in the 1770s; from chichi bars in the aftermath of AIDS to today’s fluid queer spaces; through glory holes, into Crisco-slicked dungeons and down San Francisco alleys. He charts police raids and riots, posing and passing out–and a chance encounter one restless night that would change his life forever.
The journey that emerges is a stylish and nuanced inquiry into the connection between place and identity–a tale of liberation, but one that invites us to go beyond the simplified Stonewall mythology and enter lesser-known battlefields in the struggle to carve out a territory. Elegiac, randy, and sparkling with wry wit, Gay Bar is at once a serious critical inquiry, a love story and an epic night out to remember.
Get it here or at your local library
Watch: Licorice Pizza by Paul Thomas Anderson
Called an ode to ’70s L.A. or more specifically step-sister, “the Valley”, it’s an unconventional coming-of-age romp starring Alana Haim from yes, HAIM. If the story’s not a big enough draw the soundtrack and style of the seventies just might be. (and further breakdown of Licorice Pizza style coming soon!)
Listen: Women In Music Pt. III
If all you know of Haim is their addictively catchy “I want you back” might we suggest another listen? Their most recent album is Women In Music III. According to Aimee Cliff of Pitchfork “The third album from the trio is far and away their best. Intimate, multidimensional, and wide-ranging, the songwriting shines with personality and a great curiosity for melody and style.” We couldn’t agree more.
You can listen here on Spotify
–KL Dunn
More Recommendations
Read: Consumed, Watch: Gunda, Listen: Got Climate Doom?
Read: The Book of Hope, Watch: Windowswap, Listen: All of It
Read: Fashionopolis, Watch: Queercore-how to punk a revolution Listen: Goat Girl
Read: Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, Watch: Newfest Pride Film Festival, Listen: Moon Bounce
Culture Dose | 12.17 The Holiday in NYC Edition
