4216 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
featuring festive queer gifts handmade by Peppré Ann, Gave Good Face, Amy von Harrington, Semiotext(e) and Sven Soapright.
with musical guest Penis
MC Lex Vaughn
Dirty Looks is thrilled to continue our collaboration with Die Kränken, a multi-media collective responding to the history of Southern California gay motorcycle clubs, to present an unlikely holiday gift bazaar, featuring handmade products and art objects to queer your capitalistic seasonal gift giving. Assembling five vendor booths and a specially designed Christmas handkerchief for the occasion, the event will feature a photo both generative towards Die Kränken’s upcoming exhibition opening at ONE Archives in February. Procure clothing, books, prints, soaps and “wroths” from vendors Peppré Ann, Gave Good Face, Amy Von Harrington, “Semiosex” and Sven Soapright, all to the twinkling tunes of festive darlings, Penis and the performative shenanigans of your yule hog, Lex Vaughn. Christmas Cookie catering courtesy of Macgick Cake/Nikki Darling.
Die Kränken or “The Sick” in German (a reference to both the historical pathologization of homosexuality and the pandemic of a generation of gay men) is a group of artists formed in 2015 in response to the ONE Center’s collection of archives detailing the history of Southern California gay motorcycle clubs. With an expanding group of members, Die Kränken takes its inspiration from these outlaw clubs and examines the history, the fetishism, and their significance and complications through a variety of media and performance strategies. Frustrated with popular assimilationist aspirations, Die Kränken aligns with queer political strategies of radicality. Die Kränken sees the link between these clubs and the contemporary alienation felt in response to culture at large. Using experimental documentary, butch disco, femme metal, choreographed interventions, motorcycle runs, art, sex and pleasure, Die Kränken takes an intergenerational look at what it means to be collective and connected to one another through sister/brotherhood and shared queer aesthetics.
About the performers:
Penis is a feminist punk band committed to transformation. Penis is Samara Davis and Sophia Cleary.
Lex Vaughn is a multi disciplinarian artist with no boundaries.
About the Vendors:
Wreoths by Peppré Ann; hondcrofted woth love from my heart to your door.
GAVEGOODFACE is an apparel line established in San Francisco in 2009, though the inspiration was born in the early 1990's. The specific imagery we choose is meant to celebrate the pop culture of that iconic time. All products are printed in small batches, by hand in San Francisco.
Reimagining the parts for your privacy. Private Part Art by AVH
Best known for its introduction of French theory to American readers, Semiotext(e) has been one of America’s most influential independent presses since its inception more than three decades ago. Publishing works of theory, fiction, madness, economics, satire, sexuality, science fiction, activism and confession, Semiotext(e’)s highly curated list has famously melded high and low forms of cultural expression into a nuanced and polemical vision of the present.
Soapright Soaps brings you bars of soap made with homemade care. The ingredients are water, lye, a fine selection of base oils (olive, eco-friendly palm, safflower, sunflower, and coconut), thoughtful blends of essential oils for the friendly scents, and other helpful knick-knacks for color, texture, and skin benefits, like charcoal, green clay and shea butter.
Magick Cake sails to you on wings of love. All organic local ingredients infused with the power of the mystical. Be one with your sweetness. Eat cake.