Michael Childers: Flaming Creatures

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Where

Main Museum

When

December 22, 2022 – July 23, 2023

Where

Main Museum

When

December 22, 2022 – July 23, 2023

Radiating a cheeky playfulness in their high-style ball gowns, tuxedos, feather boas, and top hats, these attendees of the 1975 Los Angeles drag ball are documented in Michael Childers’ photographs.

In this series, appropriately titled Flaming Creatures, Michael captures the amusing gender play and gestures of mischievous defiance that reflect the Southern California gay community of the 1970s.

By shining a light on the fragility of gender categories and the pleasure of self-expression, Michael here anticipates our present era of transgender awareness and gender fluidity. He developed a photographic language to embrace the radical potential of those who dared to use their bodies to reinvent our understanding of gender.

All photographs are by Michael Childers, American born 1944, titled Los Angeles Drag Ball, from the Flaming Creatures series, 1975, gelatin silver prints, and are gifts of the artist.

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