GAYLETTER

This Tuesday Dirty Looks is hosting the first ever survey of work by Chris E. Vargas at the Anthology Film Archives. Vargas is a Bay Area film and video maker whose work focuses on queer radicalism, transgender hirstory, and imperfect role models. I love how Vargas’ work is both searingly political and absolutely hilarious at the same time. In the video from which Tuesday’s program got it’s title, Vargas exposes his trans body in a guerrilla campaign for FTM visibility to some well, and some not-so-well known American landmarks, each time enquiring: “have you ever seen a transsexual before?!” The video then transitions to a utopic vision of what I can only describe as queer zoological surrealism.

There will be several other videos screened at the event, including Vargas’ fabulous collaboration with Eric A. Stanley, Homotopia, an anti-homonormative manifesto full of bathroom sex and wedding crashing. You’ll also get to see several examples of Vargas’ recent work reinterpreting queer pop culture and history, including Liberaceón, in which Vargas impersonates Liberace humorously imagining an alternate history that politicizes the flamboyant closeted icon. Don’t miss this chance to see a survey of Vargas’ work with the artist himself in attendance — we promise it will be fierce!

Still from Homotopia, 2006, Chris Vargas and Eric Stanley

Still from Liberaceón, 2011, Chris Vargas

$10, 9PM, Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Ave. NY, NY.