Paintings of guardian angels, early gender-fluid cosplay and illustrations of spaceships streaking across a starry expanse. Those are some of the images visitors will experience at a new exhibition at USC that looks at the connections between science fiction, the occult and the LGBTQ+ community in Los Angeles. The art show, called Sci-fi, Magick, Queer L.
A.: Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation , focuses on the period between 1930 and 1960 and pulls from private collections and USC’s ONE archive — the largest collection of LGBTQ+ materials in the world. The show will run Aug.
22 - Nov. 23 at USC’s Fisher Museum of Art. Organizers say it provides a window into alternate realities dreamed up by queer artists who were looking for respite from oppressive cultural norms.
“Science fiction is imagining things like a rocket ship, but we don’t make it yet...
and it eventually becomes a reality,” said Alexis Bard Johnson, the lead curator of the exhibit and curator of the ONE Archives at USC Libraries. “I think there was hope in that structure that other things in society could also change.” The exhibit features works by Morris Scott Dollens, Marjorie Cameron, Curtis Harrington and other notable artists, writers and filmmakers.
A prolific artist, Dollens sold hundreds of paintings at science fiction conventions. He also produced homoerotic photomontages of the male figure, which will be on display at the exhibit. Johnson, the curator, said she was struck by the amount of.