LAST NIGHT The world of underground dance music is one deeply rooted in queer culture. A place where all peoples can come together in a safe and welcome environment to fully express themselves, to listen to music and socialize is just one subject that is touched upon in the show LAST NIGHT. These spaces and events are sacred to the community because they are a means to gather and celebrate in commune the spirit of complete self-expression. They are considered “underground” because it is often of a secretive nature that is meant to protect those within its walls so they can participate without fear and free themselves of the stressors of everyday society and work. Through word of mouth and smaller social circles the passing of events is often shared so as to keep it between friends (being anyone who is an open, accepting person) Queer culture has helped to build the foundation of the underground dance music scene and its concepts have continued to spread to others who foster the growing nightlife scene under its umbrella. The show LAST NIGHT would not be complete without a collaborative effort to bring one of the most beautiful elements of queer culture, and nightlife in general, to the participants’ attention, We are proud to prioritize the necessity to “live your life like it’s our last on earth” to the forefront and give you a chance to join us in the celebration of continued perseverance and acceptance. In collaboration with (and within) the MICRO•GALLERY show LAST NIGHT, we are pleased to invite you to an intimate dance experience with Eden Alison & Slacks all night long! August 19th 11PM to 5AM within the walls of HOT•BED Limited Capacity – Please purchase advanced tickets here - HERE Door tickets are first come first serve. All ticket sales support the guest artist (Eden Alison), equipment rentals, the gallery's ongoing programming/event overhead and paying all staff a better than living wage. It should be self-explanatory but don't bring anything except love, acceptance and good vibes.
About the show: HOT•BED’s MICRO•GALLERY is pleased to present LAST NIGHT, a four-person show featuring works by Dana Buzzee, Lucas LaRochelle, Joseph Liatela, and Ryan Rudewicz. The exhibition will be on view from July 9 - August 27, with an opening reception on July 9, 2022 at 6 PM. Gay is an identity of longing, and there is a wistfulness to beholding it in the form of a building, like how the sight of a theater stirs the imagination -Jeremy Atherton Lin, Gay Bar: Why We Went Out Memory, hope, utopia, longing: these are the central themes of LAST NIGHT. Looking back as a way of looking forward, the works in this show—like the people they celebrate—engage the past as a lens through which we might envision a better future. They illustrate the value of making permanent the impermanent moments of community realized in gay bars, cabarets, sex dungeons, park corners, and other sites of queer intimacy. The title of this show, LAST NIGHT, refers to a set past (“remember what we did last night?”) as well as an uncertain future (“let’s live like it’s our last night on earth!”), alluding to the precarity of radical queerness in a heterosexual society. In light of recent years’ events, questions about the value of queer spaces and placemaking traditions have returned to the front of many peoples’ minds. What does it mean to cultivate a “queer space”? How do queer folk assert their bodily autonomy in a world that prioritizes heterosexuality? Is there such thing as “queer place”? LAST NIGHT assembles the work of four artists—Dana Buzzee, Lucas LaRochelle, Joseph Liatela, and Ryan Rudewicz—whose practices celebrate the various ways queer communities carve out a place for themselves in the world. LAST NIGHT features work produced in the aftermath of 2020, a pivotal year of global loss and learning, that highlights the effervescence and precarity of queer place. Buzzee’s otherworldly sculptures revel in the aesthetics of bondage and witchcraft, their iridescence and transparency reminding viewers of life’s fleeting nature. LaRochelle’s QT.bot series unsticks itself from time through its automated mining of text and images from their crowdsourced Queering the Map, reaching backwards in recent queer history to point towards a more hopeful future. Liatela’s videography and prints explore themes of superimposition, ghostly presence, and bittersweet memory to remind viewers that queerness in the wrong hands is not always a positive thing. Lastly, Rudewicz’s iconic Polaroid photographs capture the euphoria of New York queer nightlife and its resonances beyond the nighttime hours. -Liam Maher Curator, LAST NIGHT.