Club Fuck!

Club Fuck! (also known as Club FUCK!)[1] was a nightclub that officially began the summer of 1989 and was hosted by Miguel Beristain, Cliff Diller, and James Stone.[2][3]

The weekly party was located at Basgo's Disco in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles.[4][5] It later moved to Dragonfly Bar in West Hollywood and lasted until 1993, when it was raided by the Los Angeles Police Department's Vice Division. Fuck! constituted a gritty liminal space oppositional to both the neighborhood's largely men-only leather bars as well as the clean-cut bars of West Hollywood. At Fuck! the modified, pierced, and tattooed body was front and center. Scarring, mummification, and piercing were staples at Fuck!, confronting fears of contagion while revealing the temporality of the body during the height of the AIDS crisis. Performances at Fuck! were both transgressive and theatrical, pushing the limits of what the performer's body (and audience) could endure with a spirit of play.

Notable performers at Fuck! included Bob Flanagan, Sheree Rose, Buck Angel, Ron Athey, Vaginal Davis, Daphne Von Rey, Jenny Shimizu, Durk Dehner, Catherine Opie, Michele Mills.

In an April 1991 article in the LA Weekly, Fuck! was described as not simply “an existential exercise in bad attitudes,” but rather “a celebration of the primal life force amped up to overload,” with an “S&M/sexual subtext” that makes it “sociologically fascinating.”[6]

On August 5, 2009, Antebellum Hollywood presented Club Fuck! 20 year reunion, featuring photography, artworks, posters, and memorabilia from the people who created the once-in-a-lifetime club. Curated by Rick Castro, the event featuring live performance by Club Fuck original Linda Lesabre, original playlist from DJ John Mark, artwork and contributions from James Stone, Michelle Carr, Catherine Opie, Sheree Rose, Jenny Shimizu and many more.

Club Fuck was the subject of the exhibition entitled "FUCK! Loss, desire and pleasure" curated by Lucia Fabio and Toro Castaño at USC's ONE Archives.[7][8]

References
  1. "FUCK! Loss, desire, pleasure - ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries".
  2. Lecaro, Lina (26 January 2013). "RIP James Stone: Nightlife Innovator Is Dead".
  3. Henkes, Andrew J. (21 Dec 2013). "A Party for the "Freaks": Performance, Deviance and Communitas at Club Fuck!, 1989–1993". The Journal of American Culture. 36 (4): 284–295. doi:10.1111/jacc.12050.
  4. "The Low L.A. Dee Da Life". 18 November 1998.
  5. Ehrman, Mark (10 January 1993). "Nonconformist Fun". Los Angeles Times.
  6. "Media Fields Journal - Industrial Strength Queer - Industrial Strength Queer: Club Fuck! and the Reorientation of Desire".
  7. "L.A.'s Legendary Queer Night Club". 2016-02-29.
  8. "FUCK! Loss, desire, pleasure - ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries".

[1]

  1. https://bbook.com/nightlife/club-fuck-turns-20/
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