Shaun Johnson and Jensen Rule Tierra, “Secret Eater” (all images courtesy of the artists)
The horror genre’s focus on otherness and transformation, as well as its potential for camp, makes it a well-suited vehicle to explore queer identities. Artists Dakota Noot and Christopher Anthony Velasco elaborate on this connection with Scream Queen, the group exhibition they curated featuring artists who employ horror tropes or aesthetics to investigate and celebrate queerness. Participating artists include Paul Pescador, whose DIY films recall personal and historical memories through everyday objects; photographer Amina Cruz, who captures the queer POC community on Los Angeles’s Eastside; and Megan Koth, whose paintings portray the internalized violence of rigid beauty standards.
Ciriza, “Erotic Slumbers of Pluto”
This Sunday afternoon, Noot and Velasco have organized a screening in conjunction with the show, which will feature short films by Ciriza, Maiza Hixson, and Shaun Johnson and Jensen Rule Tierra. “Secret Eater” by Shaun Johnson and Tierra takes its name from a term describing someone who consumes large quantities of food in private. Their campy black-and-white short reimagines the disorder as a gory act of self-cannibalism. Ciriza’s “Erotic Slumbers of Pluto” also traffics in body horror, but with an ominous, as opposed to humorous, tone. The experimental desert film lingers on peeling skin, mud-caked limbs, and a costume made of hair to create a feeling of enticing dread. The event will also include Tony Scott’s 1983 erotic vampire classic “The Hunger,” starring David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve, and Susan Sarandon.
When: Sunday, October 20, 1–4pm
Where: Little Tokyo Art Complex (262 S. Los Angeles St., Downtown, Los Angeles)
More info at Facebook
