Ladies and Gentlemen is being shown in conjunction with Cry, Baby, a solo show by contemporary artist Devan Shimoyama. In his colorful and glittering paintings of African American boys and men coiled with snakes or crying crystal tears, Beck saw echoes of Warhol’s little-known series. In both, she sees “the possibility of embracing one’s beauty and accepting one’s queerness.”
Currently, Shimoyama is painting his own series of drag queens of color, one of which will be inserted into the Ladies and Gentlemen installation. “Drag queens have superheroic tendencies,” he says. “They wear spandex, have alter egos, do their duty out of necessity for the greater good (giving the gays a space and secret coded language). They’re fully realizing a fictitious illusion of their own creation.”
