"Sci-fi, Magick, Queer L.A." Named One of the Best 30 Art Books of 2024 by Hyperallergic

Sci-fi, Magick, Queer L.A.: Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation was named one of the top 30 art books by Hyperallergic of 2024. You can read the whole article here but below is what they said about our book! We are honored to be among such fine company. 

 

Sci-fi, Magick, Queer L.A.: Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation, edited by Alexis Bard Johnson and Kelly Filreis

Wrapped in luxe maroon cloth and stamped golden cover art, Sci-fi, Magick, Queer LA: Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation as an object is as sumptuous and sensual as its contents. The catalog compiles essays and images spanning the development of a remarkable social milieu in 1930s–’60s Los Angeles. From avante-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger to historian Jim Kepner to writer Edythe D. Eyde (also known as Lisa Ben and Tigrina The Devil Doll), the book documents a burgeoning community centered around a love for science fiction and occultism. Its contributors elucidate a special moment in LA history when these movements offered means of escapism for midcentury queer people dreaming of other realities. Whereas gay bars were subject to police raids, sci-fi and occult collectives operated mostly under the radar, often gestating an unexpected space for queer connectivity.

Its pages are decorated with beautifully reproduced images from the exhibition — erotic and fantastical drawings, images of early cosplay, film stills, ephemera from the foundational ONE Archives, and more. The exhibition at the USC Fisher Museum of Art is part of Pacific Standard Time‘s Art and Science Collide initiative and continues through March 15 of next year, but the book proves a beautiful standalone resource, replete with luxe two-page spreads and essays decorated with jewel-tone inks. —Jasmine Weber

Buy on Bookshop | Inventory Press & ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, October 2024

Related Content

Dionysian Worship in Queer California

On: Nov 14 2024 at: 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Join us for a fascinating talk that looks at the rites of Dionysus as employed in two Californian contexts: the first, a filmed act of sparagmos (the ritual rending apart of a sacrificial victim) in Los Angeles in Kenneth Anger's Inauguration of the Pleasuredome (1954); the second, a series of Bacchic revels enacted by Arthur Evans and his Faery Circle in San Francisco and its environs in the mid-1970s, which prefigured and inspired the Radical Faeries Movement that later became a fully-fledged queer spiritual pathway.