Co-curators: Adrian Rivas and Pilar Tompkins

Gallery 727 is pleased to present Outings, a group exhibition exploring public spaces in Los Angeles that have traditionally been appropriated by gay men for male/male encounters. These urban spaces tend to be unassuming areas within the city’s everyday landscape – from the alleyway of Melrose Avenue, to wooded areas like Griffith and Elysian Parks as described in books written by John Rechy and other gay/lesbian underground novelists.

These settings hold a silent tension within them; one that is filled with a fleeting sense of longing, love and loneliness. Controversy shadows these locations, as urban revitalization projects and gentrification force city planers to confront their existence and their relevance to surrounding communities.

Once viewed as a mainstay for anonymous trysts, the nature of these domains today shifts as the internet and changes in societal acceptance have transformed interpersonal channels.