Night Gallery South, 2276 E 16th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90021
Saturday, December 16, 2023, 2-3 p.m.
Free admission
Presented by Darin Klein & Friends with Amy Adler
Channel your inner voyeur and join us for an afternoon of literary offerings in conjunction with Amy Adler’s current exhibition at Night Gallery, Audition. Readers will perform in front of the artist’s 15-foot-long artwork, Locker Room. A dynamic selection of authors—from diverse backgrounds and spanning generations—add their own layers of narrative and experimental storytelling to Adler’s oeuvre, which itself is already rich with cinematic connotations. Self-discovery, wistful contemplation, and bold assertions unfold across each writer’s words through childhood montages, dream-like recollections, and much more.
Audition is on view through December 22. Don’t miss the last weekend opportunity to see the show which, as Annie Bush writes in Flaunt, “… elucidates a vivid, ongoing cinematic universe… the audience absorbs the exhibition just outside of the blurry jurisdictions of art and cinema, within the dynamic, fleshy realm fabricated by Adler herself.”
“Locker Room Readings” coincides with the Sticky holiday market at Night Gallery North, 2050 Imperial Street. This event will run from 11AM-5PM with free entry. Consider making an afternoon of it and attending both events.
Taneum Bambrick is the author of Intimacies, Received (Copper Canyon Press) and Vantage, which was selected by Sharon Olds for the American Poetry Review first book award. Her work appears in The New Yorker, The Nation, and elsewhere. She is a PhD student at the University of Southern California where she's working on a memoir.
Meliza Bañales aka Missy Fuego (she/they) was a 2016 Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Best LGBT Debut Fiction for their novel Life Is Wonderful, People Are Terrific. They are the author of two poetry collections, three chapbooks, one novel, and two films. They served as Lecturer in Creative Writing at UC San Diego from 2015-2020. They have been awarded The People Before Profits Poetry Prize, Legend of Slam, Grand Slam Champion, and they were honored by the city of West Hollywood as part of their billboard poetry series for National Poetry Month in 2022 and 2023. Their newest book, roōt for the underdog: poems, arrived in fall 2022 and they are a 2023 Pride Poet and member of the West Hollywood Slam Team. They live in Los Angeles and Central Coast California.
Molly Larkey (they/them) is a Los Angeles based artist and writer. They have exhibited widely with museums and galleries internationally, including solo exhibitions at MoMA PS1, New York; Gallery 12.26, Dallas; Luis De Jesus, Los Angeles; Ochi Gallery, Ketchum and Los Angeles; Dutton Gallery, New York; Human Resources, Los Angeles; and Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, among others. Their work was featured in The Shape of Things to Come: New Sculpture, at the Saatchi Gallery in London and The Beyond at Crystal Bridges Museum of Art. Their writing has been published with Los Angeles Review of Books, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (CARLA), and Haunt Journal of Art. In 2019, they co-founded People’s Pottery Projects, whose mission is to empower formerly incarcerated women, trans, and non-binary individuals through meaningful employment in a collective non-profit ceramic business.
Steven Reigns is a Los Angeles poet and educator and was appointed the first Poet Laureate of West Hollywood. Alongside over a dozen chapbooks, he has published the collections Inheritance and Your Dead Body is My Welcome Mat. Reigns holds a BA in Creative Writing and a Master of Clinical Psychology. He edited My Life is Poetry, showcasing his students’ work from the first-ever autobiographical poetry workshop for LGBT seniors. Reigns has lectured and taught writing workshops around the country to LGBT youth and people living with HIV. Currently he is touring The Gay Rub, an exhibition of rubbings from LGBT landmarks. His newest poetry collection, A Quilt for David, was published by City Lights and is the product of ten years of research regarding dentist David Acer’s life.
An ever-expanding analog network of collaborators, Darin Klein & Friends presents dynamic and engaging exhibitions, arts programming, and artists' publications. Collectively, our endeavors have been featured in venues including Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH); Amy Adler's Echo Park Studio, Craft Contemporary, Hammer Museum, LACMA, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Outfest Platinum, Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair (Geffen Contemporary at MoCA), REDCAT Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater, and Tom of Finland Art and Culture Festival (Los Angeles); Yale University (New Haven, CT); MOMA, Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair (Dia:Chelsea, Philips de Pury, MOMA PS1), and White Columns (New York); and 54th San Francisco International Film Festival, Baer Ridgeway / 2nd floor projects, ESP, New Langton Arts, scene/escena, SFMOMA, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco).