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More Glitter - Less BitterPost an Event »

Electric Works

June 4 - July 11, 2010

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1360 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94103
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More Glitter - Less Bitter Kegel Kater and Nancy French in The Thrillpeddlers revival production of the Cockettes' - Pearls Over Shanghai. Photograph by Daniel Nicoletta December 4, 2009
Artist reception: Friday, June 4, 6 - 8 PM Electric Works is pleased to present More Glitter - Less Bitter, a poignant romp through Dan Nicoletta’s vigilant documentation of San Francisco’s gay, lesbian, bisexual transgender communities. In 1975 Dan Nicoletta was hired by Harvey Milk to work in Milk’s Castro Street camera store and there at age 19, Dan’s life path as a documentarian for that emerging scene began. Milk was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the world and he became a symbol of hope to the LGBT civil rights movement after he was assassinated in 1978. The photographs in the exhibit will highlight significant moments along the way including still photos taken by Nicoletta on the set of Gus Van Sant’s Academy Award winning film MILK in which actor Lucas Grabeel portrayed Nicoletta. Through the last 38 years Nicoletta has remained a key point person for LGBT Community related research. The title of this exhibit More Glitter – Less Bitter, takes its cue from Nicoletta’s penchant for the ebullient and theatrical in life. In his article about Nicoletta’s 1996 retrospective in San Francisco, art critic David Bonetti wrote: “…it has been Nicoletta's conscious choice to photograph the more, shall we say, theatrical members of a community that has been famous for putting the pizzazz in theater since the first fabulous costume was worn on that stage just East of Eden. (Who, after all, invented sequins?) … if you love flamboyance, drag queens, discos, alternative theater, pretty boys, powerful women and the in-your-face politics of Queer Nation, you'll probably find Nicoletta's photographs just your cup of tea… San Francisco is lucky that Nicoletta has been there with his camera recording it through all of its changes.”