Wu Tsang’s WILDNESS

Part of Exhibition Reflections Film Series

Past event: streamed from November 1–30, 2021

Wu Tsang, WILDNESS, 2012 (still); courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix

Wildness
Wu Tsang, 2012, 74 mins. Color. Sound. Digital. In Spanish and English, with dual subtitles.
 
In WILDNESS, Wu Tsang offers a deeply felt portrait of the Silver Platter, a Latino Los Angeles LGBTQ bar that dates back to 1963, before the Stonewall riots. The storytelling format merges elements of fiction and documentary structures to explore Tsang’s complicated relationship with the bar, one that presents her role as an artist, activist, and member of a younger generation learning about the venue’s queer legacy. Tsang implicates herself as one of the newcomers and gentrifiers drawn by the art world’s attention to the club’s weekly Wildness party, and whose presence is affecting the dynamic for the Silver Platter’s working class, Latinx, and primarily immigrant regulars.

With Mariana Marroquin as the Voice of the Silver Platter. WILDNESS performers (in order of appearance): Zackary Drucker, Crazy Bitch in a Cave, Camlab, Geneva Jacuzzi, Stefan L. Smith, Amy Linton, We Are the World, Shunda K., Butchie & Fay, Tamechi, Dynasty Handbag, Lucky Dragons, Alex Black & Samuel White, Agassi Ben Gura, Mirror Mirror (with Veronica Celabaum & Ryan Trecartin), Roberto Ramone and The Modernaire, Fine Art Union, Foxy Moron, Iliana Snapper and Ron Athey, Geneva Washington, Leopold Nunan, Patrick (Sax Player).

Screens courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix.