Adult Contemporary

On the occasion of PrideFEST 2024, a selection of illustrated texts currently for sale:

1️⃣ Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings / Leo Bersani: Gay Betrayals (Two Works)—$39.95 (inc. GST)—Building on artistic research into the politics of q***r spaces and culture some 20 years later, British artist duo Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings revisit Bersani’s polemic with a response in three acts. Through a kaleidoscopic array of drawings, preparatory sketches and egg tempera paintings, a narrative of everyday (homo)sociality emerges.

2️⃣ Evelyn Taocheng Wang: Unintended Experience (A Job In Amsterdam)—$37.95 (inc. GST)—This volume gathers a collection of diary-like texts, posted in 2015 by Rotterdam-based Chinese artist Evelyn Taocheng Wang (born 1981) on her page, recording the aesthetic, intellectual and sentimental experiences she had as an undercover transgender masseuse in a massage parlor in Amsterdam. The vignette-like chapters retrace the daily routine at the parlor, incidents with clients and conversations with fellow workers, as well as personal reflections that deftly mix bursts of humor with moments of tension, poetical notes and an acute sense of observation.

3️⃣ Martin Wong: Footprints, Poems, and Leaves—$44.00 (inc. GST)—Self-published in 1968, ‘Footprints, Poems, and Leaves’ collects dozens of poems written by Martin Wong between 1966 and 1968. Hand-written in a signature calligraphic style that he was just beginning to develop, the poems ebb and flow visually across the page, much like the fluctuating characters, scenes, and moods that inhabit them. This was Wong’s first book of poetry and it contains a double cover showcasing intricate drawings of skeletal angels and other tableaux, as well as a folded, looseleaf broadsheet containing two poems and a drawing of a boney leaf.

Available to purchase (while stocks last) from AC’s shop in PICA’s foyer, or via direct message and email. 🛍