CIRCUS OF BOOKS: BLOWOUT
ONLINE EXHIBITION ORGANIZED WITH RACHEL MASON
THROUGH MAY 31ST
FIERMAN presents Circus of Books: BLOWOUT, an online exhibition in homage to the legendary eponymous gay adult bookstore in Los Angeles, now closed, and the critically acclaimed documentary Circus of Books by Rachel Mason, to be released on Netflix on April 22, 2020. Mason’s film artfully presents her parents’ unlikely stewardship of the Circus of Books empire in a true masterclass of documentary personal and cultural histories. The online exhibition is a sequel to the 2019 show at the gallery co-organized with Mason that featured the work of over fifty artists, hung riotously overflowing the small room. In Circus of Books: BLOWOUT works from over twenty artists will be viewable on the gallery’s website and a video program will run concurrently on the website and Instagram account @fiermangallery. 20% of the profits generated from the exhibition will be donated to organizations supporting homeless LGBTQ youth: the Ali Forney Center in New York and Mi Centro in Los Angeles.
Liberation sparks in community; radicality springs from togetherness. For over forty years the Circus of Books was a gathering place for queer Los Angeles; it was a hub for cruising, a depot for highly desired gay pornography, a space of solace in the height of the AIDS crisis. Collective queer joy and unspeakable pain reverberated in the walls of the store, a physical testament to the revolutionary power of people gathering together in a room.
In 2020 as we collectively all engage with the discomfiting neologism “social distancing” FIERMAN is aiming, with the help of Rachel Mason’s incredible documentary, to stake a claim for a future in which physical interpersonal engagement remains paramount. Take this presentation as a gesture towards a future in which we can bump shoulders in a gallery, gay bar, or bookstore. FIERMAN will see you there.
Nora Griffin was born in New York City in 1982. She received a BA from Oberlin College in 2005 and an MFA from Columbia University in 2011. Nora makes abstract paintings with an emphatic relationship to color, space, and memory. She has shown her work in solo and two-person shows at FIERMAN and Louis B. James in New York. Recent exhibitions include: Chuck Nanney & Nora Griffin at FIERMAN; “Modern Love” at Louis B. James; Intimacy in Discourse: Unreasonable Sized Paintings, curated by Phong Bui at SVA Chelsea Gallery; EXPO Chicago with Louis B. James; Paradise Café, curated by Olivia Smith at Spring/Break Art Show; and NADA NY with Louis B. James. Nora has twice been a resident at the Edward F. Albee Foundation in Montauk, NY and was a fellow at the BAU/Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France. Nora currently teaches painting at Cooper Union in New York and has been a visiting artist at Oberlin College and the Hoffberger School of Painting at MICA. Her writing about contemporary art has appeared in Art in America and The Brooklyn Rail.
“Untitled” from Drops & Spiral Series, Gouache on Arches paper, 15”x11”, 2020
”15”x11”
$600
Dietmar Busse (b. 1966) lives and works in New York. He was born in Stolzenau, Germany and as a young man learned the world of photography in Madrid before relocating to New York in 1991. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Museum Schloss Moyland, Bedburg-Hau, Germany; Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam; Invisible-Exports, New York; Museum Sinclair Haus, Bad Homburg; the Leslie Lohman Museum, New York, among other venues. His work has been publicized in The New Yorker, TIME, The London Independent, The New York Times Magazine and Interview, among other publications.
All postcards are approx “4 1/4 x5 1/2"
Nora Griffin 1999 Tee, 2023
Cotton shirt, fabric paint, dye, bleach
Size Medium
fabric paint, dye,and bleach fabric paint, dye,and bleach
Wet, Wet, Wet, Jeans! Flat, 2020
Ceramic
8 1/2h x 10w in