June 7, 1989
Wednesday, 9:45 am

This morning I xeroxed tree images for me and the Kostabi flyer for ART+ so they'll be available for the Erotophobia opening. When I dropped them off Simon coerced me into hanging pictures. Since I don't like hanging things, even my own, I helped unload an incredibly heavy Lari Pittman off the truck. Somehow I managed to insult the painting and Simon got mad so I left to go home and work.

What I worked on I don't remember though I did go to the gym at some point, took my laundry to be done and ate lunch. David Hixon, who works for Simon, has a studio to rent in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for $550 a month. I don't see the sense in paying as much for a studio as I do for my apartment but Simon is hot for me to get it.

A friend of Deb Gilbert called. She's making a video on teenaged gays and lesbians and looking for somebody to help her fund it, maybe throw a benefit. I told her to talk to Ann Northrop at ACT UP since if I knew how to raise cash I'd do it for myself.

When I went to Simon's at six he was still hanging the show and was, himself, a mess running around with ladders. Erotophobia looks good but I'm having some reservations about it already. Not grave reservations but the activist posters -- Barbara Kruger's "Your Body Is A Battleground" for instance -- look out of place. The criticism against putting activist work in a gallery space is that the work is drained of message and impact. Yet that context also allows for juxtapositions that you wouldn't get on the street between "art objects," "pornography" and cheap white wine. I concluded that this kind of project is worthwhile if only because there are so few galleries that would actually do it. Those who worry about "aestheticising" the work are dealing more in theory than actual practice.

It is also possible that Simon is being elitist because not very many people know about his space so he can depend upon a fairly non-confrontational crowd. After all, he didn't invite the firemen next door. He tells me again and again his world is a very small art world and while this can be seen as an elitist cop-out, elitism may have its value in that it allows new ideas to take root and gain a foothold in a hothouse atmosphere. The problem comes when this closed environment become depleted of nutrients or, worse, becomes poisoned (See Hawthorne's short story "Rapaccini's Daughter".)

The members of Group Material were at the opening. Don Moffet popped in then out. Hunter Reynolds kept saying goodbye then staying. Bill Arning told me Josie had her baby a month prematurely but he didn't have any more details. Gary Indiana bopped around. That video woman who wants me to throw a benefit found me. The members of the Caught Looking collective were there, looking. I talked to Tim Landers, Bill Dobbs and Simon Leung.

I actually stayed for the whole thing. Richmond Burton said we'd met at my opening and talked but I didn't remember and was embarrassed.

When I turned off the lights I ruined a computer program from a guy in California that had to be shut down first. David, Terrance, Gary, John, Richmond, Simon and I went over to Soho Natural for drinks. Gary and Simon planned to remake all of warhol's films with all-male casts. I suggested doing the Empire State Building film with Trump Tower instead.

Gary Indiana is in love with Richard Hawkins but doesn't want to fuck him, he just wants to be his soul mate and wife. I imagined Gary wearing a caftan (petite) in their Laurel Canyon home entertaining visitors while Richard was in some other room working at his writing.

Simon stopped being mad at me for insulting the Pittman painting when I told him Erotophobia was wonderful. He thinks I'm too critical. I suggested he talk to Tim Landers instead of Douglas Crimp about a panel next week. We talked about ways of getting back at Tina Brown and Vanity Fair for their coverage of AIDS and homosexuality. We could use Brown as a test for S.I. Newhouse. Gary said he'd try to make it to the ART+ meeting tonight but I doubt it because of the readings.

Simon had two martinis then toddled off to Marcel. He was at his shrink, a different shrink than Simon's. Simon, Richmond and I walked uptown and I left them on Bond Street.

A woman at the opening remarked about how hard it was to align feminist critique of penis worship with gay homoerotic male sensibility. I said a penis is easier to draw. She misunderstood me then made fun of me. She was in the Whitney Program.

I asked Simon why Lari Pittman didn't show in New York and he said it was partly because he didn't need to and that he's too much of a queen for New York. He was born and raised in Colombia and I said I could guess what he was like because the gay men I've met from South America have an act they do. Tim and I have talked about it, how they have a role to play in their society that can't be masculine -- because they aren't "real" men -- but still retains the macho stance when pushed. Something like deadly flowers.