Join us for an artist talk with Efrain John Gonzalez, who will be sharing his decades-long practice of documenting the body piercing community and other escapades from the SM scene in New York City and Beyond. A lecture by Gonzalez will be followed by a generous Q & A.
Efrain John Gonzalez (b. 1952) is a photographic artist whose talents with the camera and darkroom have allowed him to document the unusual, the erotic, the unique, the wild and slightly crazy, from the world of body modifications to the underground universe of radical S&M, from sensual beauty of the flesh, to raw sexual desires. Based in Park-Slope, Brooklyn, he is an internationally published photographer who has been traveling down dark and mysterious paths for the past 40 years. Through his mostly film-based practice of black and white and Kodachrome photography, he has captured real life images that illustrate a story of people finding the path to their souls, gathering together to celebrate their uncommon lives. His patience has created a rare historical archive of original work, candid photographs of underground clubs, transgender people, tattoo and body modification events, Queer history, cities at night, political gatherings, and leather and fetish cultures.
This program is offered in association with the exhibition NEED ME.
NEED ME, or, (de)mystifying the myth of the modern primitive is the first ever public exhibition to present the Western history of body piercing and its roots in queer history. A culmination of years of archival research, NEED ME traces the networks of queer individuals throughout the sexual underground who were essential to modern piercing history through magazines, correspondence, ephemera, and artwork. NEED ME explores icons such as Jim Ward and Fakir Musafar and brings together artworks and artists who contributed to what has been termed the age of the ‘modern primitive.’ Artwork and ephemera by Catherine Opie, Ron Athey, Bob Flanagan & Sheree Rose, Leigh Bowery, Annie Sprinkle, and Efrain Gonzalez illuminate the nuanced and layered drive toward the modern practice of piercing. New works by ONE’s artist-in-residence Noorann Matties provide a haunting intervention on the fraught history of the ‘modern primitive.’ Sculptures by Xandra Ibarra, and Panteha Abareshi and a multimedia installation by Angelo Madsen enrich an intergenerational exhibition that foregrounds queer desire, alterity, and community.