Farrington Smith Gallery

The show opening is this Saturday, Sept. 8 from 6-10 p.m. and it runs through the 29th…I just wanted to post more details and links to the web pages of some of our participating artists!

Opening night features a special presentation in the back room video gallery of Los Angeles-based artist and archivist William Jones‘ feature ” V.O.”, a haunting work that pastiches dramatic (non-sex) clips from classic 70s gay porn with audio excerpts from Bunuel, Genet, French post-structuralists, and music from European soundtracks. (ETA: “V.O.” is being shown with kind permission of the David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles.)

For those inclined to revisit the last days of disco, the gallery has created The World’s Smallest Disco, in which participants will have full freedom to dance the night away under the watchful eyes of both a playback camera and fellow gallery visitors.

Rainbow Ghetto features over 40 works culled from an open call for artists to submit visual pieces exploring life, love and lust in the gay world. Equal parts pop, pomp and circumstance, the show includes local photographers Louviere + Vanessa, Stephen Forster, David Halliday, M.J. Brown, Lisa Blu, Jennifer Shaw and Charles Lathem; painters Maxx Sizeler, Brad Caldwell, Perry Morgan, Skylar Fein, Edward Hebert, Todd Perley, Mark Bercier, Chris Slave, Scott Guion, Melanie Guion, Peter Wood, Josephine Wallis, Kevin Butler and the obsessive comic adventures of local illustrator Roscoe. Mixed media work from Todd Shaffer, Madeleine Molyneaux, Sean Neary, Eden Gass, Adam Farrington and Scott Smith is also included. Artists from outside the region include photographer Michael Alago (NYC) whose solo exhibition Rough Gods will be presented at Farrington Smith in October, painter Kathrine Thompson (NYC), mixed media artist Lewis St. Louis (Raleigh), and 77-year-old self-taught artist, Martin Forman, an outpatient at Christian Huygen’s Rainbow Heights Club, a Brooklyn, NY LGBT mental health community clinic. An after-opening party including a drag show featuring “Rusty LaRue” will commence at Big Daddy’s on the corner of Royal and Franklin (right around the corner) starting at 10 p.m. and going until…

Rainbow Ghetto is dedicated to the late Jim Lyons, film editor (Safe, Velvet Goldmine, Far from Heaven, The Virgin Suicides), actor (Poison, Postcards from the Edge, Frisk), writer, and activist who passed away this past April. Rainbow Ghetto will exhibit the script of A Short Film About Andy Warhol, a project that was to be Jim’s debut film, as well as clips from his work.

A concurrent Rainbow Ghetto film event on Sept. 28th entitled A Night of Jim Lyons will feature a screening of “POISON” (1991) and a reading of “A Short Film About Andy Warhol“.

-Amy