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Public art project, Market Street, San Francisco, 1998.
24 high resolution digital prints, 48" x 68" each
Dark Passage is a series of posters developed for the San Francisco Arts Commission's Market Street Art in Transit Program. The 24 posters were displayed in advertising kiosks along Market Street, from the Embarcadero to Van Ness Avenue. The images are of gay couples, photographed and staged to look like characters in old film stills. The stills are set in San Francisco, featuring famous landmarks, representing the significance of San Francisco as a backdrop for the gay liberation movement. One photo, for example, is based on a still from Vertigoof James Stewart carrying a wet Kim Novak, following her "fall" into the bay below Golden Gate Bridge. My still inverts both the heterosexual heroism of Stewart and the Caucasian femininity of Novak by replacing then with two African American women. A narrative reading of my still would suggest that lesbians can be heroes (or more subversively, that someone can be saved through homosexuality), and at the same time the still addresses the near absence of black women (and total absence of black lesbians) as models of feminine beauty (1950 style).
Homosexuals were not overtly represented in film for most of this century. When gay characters were depicted, they were reduced to stereotypes of weak, suicidal, or dangerous men and women. My project sets the record straight. I'm subverting the strategy of the filmmakers of the time by focusing on gestures of affection, love and heroism among gays. The purpose of this project is to turn stereotypes around, to define the gay community from within, and to represent the vibrant and diverse gay community in a medium that is both accessible and familiar. The "dark passage" is the journey of gay representation from negative stereotype to positive role model.
Installation view: Dark Passage (Under the Spell of the Peaks), 1998
High resolution digital print, 48" x 68"
Dark Passage
Dark Passage (Younger than Springtime), 1998
High resolution digital print, 48" x 68"
Dark Passage
Dark Passage (Under the Spell of the Peaks), 1998
High resolution digital print, 48" x 68"
Dark Passage
Dark Passage (A Sudden Vertigo), 1998
High resolution digital print, 48" x 68"
Dark Passage
Dark Passage (Bursts all Bounds), 1998
High resolution digital print, 48" x 68"
Dark Passage
Dark Passage (All Except Marriage), 1998
High resolution digital print, 48" x 68"
Dark Passage
Dark Passage (Ya-ya Rolly), 1998
High resolution digital print, 48" x 68"