EDITOR’S NOTE: Elyssa Goodman is a New York-based author and the writer of “Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City.”
New York
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“The first time I saw God was at Bizarre,” says visible artist Rachel Rampleman.
She is referring to the drag artist God Complex and the now-defunct Brooklyn bar Bizarre. Inspired by the performer’s background as a dancer after seeing him dwell, Rampleman dedicated him to the display for “Life is Drag,” a venture whereby she movies drag performances and conducts interviews with contributors about their drag philosophies. A new exhibition displaying the venture’s newest works opens at New York’s SoMad artwork area this week, and in one of the featured movies, God Complex dances, misplaced in reverie, carrying a skin-toned robe twinkling with beads.
The many artists Rampleman has chronicled in “Life is Drag” reveal the multitudes of what the artwork kind is and will be. Since 2019, Rampleman has captured greater than 200 artists and 370 exhibits, making it the biggest identified digital archive of drag efficiency in the US.
The newest movies and portraits are the product of her artist residency at SoMad, a self-described “femme and queer led, independent art space” in Manhattan’s Flatiron District. In these new works, Rampleman selected to highlight some drag artists who’re neighborhood organizers, producers, advocates and activists, as a response to US President Donald Trump’s re-election. The significance of the venture then extends past simply the chronicle of a efficiency, it additionally turns into the validation of existence. In Rampleman’s venture, the topics can’t be erased from historical past.
“(It) was important to work with the people we felt were the most inspiring, and to do whatever we could to magnify and amplify their message and their voices,” she stated. The folks she’s labored with vary from neighborhood organizer Julie J to producer Amygdala to King Molasses, the newly topped winner of the US actuality sequence “King of Drag.” In every interview, performers advocate for themselves and their artwork. “My presence in the world is non-negotiable. I am released, so there’s really nothing you can do to stop me,” King Molasses stated in an interview Rampleman shot. “Drag is not, nor has it ever been, something that is interested in domination. It is not something that is interested in manifest destiny. It just is something that is,” Julie J stated in hers.
For somebody with such an unlimited assortment of recorded drag performances, it could be shocking that Rampleman hadn’t really seen one till 2019, when fashions in drag walked a pal’s vogue present. Rampleman had been exploring gender id in her work, filming the all-female Mötley Crüe cowl band Girls Girls Girls and the feminine bodybuilder Tazzie Colomb, amongst others. After her first drag encounter, she shortly shifted focus. She was hooked, and started venturing out to numerous performances, “seeing what I thought was basically the most interesting art being made,” Rampleman stated.
As the artist attended extra exhibits, she seen that if performers ultimately left drag, there can be little to no document of their work. But understanding venues had lower than supreme lighting situations, Rampleman started the venture in her personal Brooklyn studio after which at a number of artist residencies throughout America. It turns into clear in all facets by Rampleman’s archive that the probabilities of drag efficiency — be it to poetry or Prince, Furby movies or Fleetwood Mac — are utterly, delightfully limitless.
In a cultural second the place many individuals are launched to drag by “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” a venture like Rampleman’s not solely captures an artwork kind identified for its ephemerality however exhibits us simply how broad the scope of its artistry really is. In “Life is Drag,” there’s not one specific look, and that’s half of its energy. In the identical method there’s not one strategy to paint, there’s additionally not only one strategy to do drag. And whereas Rampleman is drawn to extra inventive, avant-garde performances, there’s additionally no scarcity of pageant-inspired numbers and lovely night robes in her wider archive, both. “The goal of the project is also just to be as inclusive and diverse in regards to who I work with as possible,” she stated.
From now till mid-December, SoMad will exhibit Rampleman’s new works. There are video installations on the constructing’s second flooring, over two dozen recorded performances enjoying throughout six screens suspended from the ceiling; interviews will run on a big display in the again of the venue and enormous portraits of collaborating drag artists, carrying all the pieces from sequin tuxedos to child doll attire, will probably be exhibited on the fourth flooring.
In America’s present cultural climate, Rampleman sees “Life is Drag” as a strategy to fight queer and trans erasure. “I feel like doing the opposite of erasure is documentation,” she stated, hoping the venture can get out into the world as a lot as potential and “provide inspiration for people who are in red states, especially in smaller cities or towns.” While Rampleman finds the Trump administration’s insurance policies in opposition to LGBTQ+ communities “depressing, disappointing, nauseating, appalling,” to not point out the feelings of right-wing groups, she has hope for a brighter future.
“I think the reason that I started and then have continued to work on this project is because the people that I find in this community are just the most extraordinary human beings on the planet, and their creativity and their empathy and their generosity is unparalleled,” she stated. “Seeing this lack of empathy, this lack of understanding (in American culture), I think doing this project keeps me going…I’m not sure how optimistic to allow myself to be but being around these performers makes me more hopeful.”
Rampleman challenges viewers of the venture to reevaluate the way in which they current themselves to the world, and to be open-minded. “Drag artists definitely want to stand out, and they encourage other people to do the same. And I think that if more people are less repressed and more self-actualized, then they are happier,” she stated. “I hope that people see these performers, and it makes them realize drag is awesome. It’s not this thing to be feared.”
“Life is Drag” is displaying at New York’s SoMad till December 18.