In recent years Ultra-red has joined with community groups in multiple cities in the U.S. and Canada to explore strategies for collective organizing around the AIDS epidemic. They have held these events in art museums, galleries and art schools in order to investigate the potential role such institutions may play in local efforts to address the crisis.  LACE has hosted Ultra-red on a number of occasions in its development of these projects and in doing so has participated actively in our investigations. The collaboration between LACE and Ultra-red on this exhibition of works by Brenton Maart marks a significant step in this institutional analysis.

Maart, a South African gay man of mixed racial heritage, was born and raised when the Apartheid regime was in power. Consequently, he is intimately acquainted with how state regulation of race and sexuality shapes intimate emotional, psychological and physical experiences. In the post-Apartheid era he and other artists of his and earlier generations, such as Bernie Searle, Anton Kannemeyer, Zanele Muholi, Conrad Botes, Diane Victor, and Nicholas Hlobo, have begun investigating the desires, hopes, histories and practices that define the contemporary sphere of sexuality in South Africa. This work inventories the ideological practices that shape how South Africans imagine and re-imagine themselves. While the trajectories they follow may be particular to South Africa, they are nevertheless resonant with comparable efforts in the United States.

Acknowledgement: Maart’s artwork, Factory Crossword, was commissioned for Make Art/Stop AIDS, an exhibition of HIV/AIDS related art work from the United States, South Africa, Brazil and India. The exhibition, scheduled to travel to venues in each of the participating countries, is having its first showing at the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles (February 23 – June 15, 2008). Concerned that Maart's work would present a barrier to ...

Recent and Rarely Seen Explicit Videos from Southern California Artists
debuted at Lust 4 LACE

This bold collection of explicit videos explores issues of the perverse and provocative, challenging many preconceptions about sexuality and desire. Whether focusing on intimacy, the sex act itself or a sense of playfulness - these unabashed explorations of the human condition transcend gender and go beyond the purely pornographic. As a whole, the explicit nature of these works is more about stripping away layers of convention, rather than just clothing.

Featuring brand new and rarely seen explicit videos and performances from Southern California artists including: Buck Angel, Skip Arnold, Jordan Biren, Squeaky Blonde, David Burns, Peter Caine, Franco Castilla, Mark B. Chamness, Charong Chow, Jennifer Cohen, Geoff Cordner, Michael Dee, Dino Dinco, Willia Drew, Zachary Drucker, Martin Durazo, Micol Hebron, Tyler Hubby, Bryan Jackson, Kadet Kuhne, Darin Klein, Lauren Lavitt, Matt Lipps, Selene Luna, Ming-Yuen S. Ma, Eon McKai, Julie Orser, Julianna (JP) Parr, Kathryne Layne Paxton, Barry Pett, Eva Posey, Dustin Robertson, Margie Schnibbe, Mark Cosmo Segurson, Thairin Smothers, Vena Virago, Austin Young, Carlos Zamora, and more.

Organized by David Burns and Margie Schnibbe, BUMP was inspired by a series of explicit video programs organized by Bruce Yonemoto in the early 1980’s.