BAS Pride 2015: Queering The “Masc”-es @ Macho Menos (6/02)
The fog has turned decidedly balmier and the streetlights of Market Street have sprouted rainbows anew. Pride has returned to the City, and whereas the Sunday festivities receive the heaviest marketing, we here at BAS want to make sure that we keep you up to date on the best part of the season, which is all the cool shit leading up to the parade. So, keep your dial here and check in for everything queer and now. – Stephen Torres
Being a Latino queer can be a complicated affair. Things can be strangely acceptable within the confines of traditional gender perspectives, but you push that envelope and things can get rough quickly. The conflict can be just as much on the inside as the out- machismo itself potentially providing both sexual attraction and ostracism (or worse.) Still, the push is happening.
As part of their 18th Annual National Queer Arts Festival, the Queer Cultural Center is hosting the exhibition Macho Menos:
“Macho Menos is a Latino queer slang play on the common Spanish phrase “mas o menos” which translates to “more or less”. This slang is used by Gay Latino men to claim their Queerness but to retain their machismo. The Macho Menos exhibition dissects and expands this term in order to examine the larger, complicated connections between queerness and machismo in Latino communities. Since birth Latinos have been taught to think in binary when it comes to gender. We cannot escape the masculine and feminine because the Spanish language is gendered. The featured artists in this art exhibition work with, against, or around gendered expectations of their respective Latino cultures. Their artwork investigates their relationship with “machismo” through the mediums of photography, painting, video, sculpture, textiles, performance and multi media. Their work explores the negotiation of the artist’s gender in relation to their Latino roots.”
The exhibition is open through July 7th, but there is a FREE opening reception Wednesday at the SF LGBT Center.
¡Chequelo!
Macho Menos
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
6:00 p.m.
The San Francisco LGBT Community Center
1800 Market Street (@ Octavia)
[Upper Market/ Lower Haight]
SF
FREE