“A Top in a Bottom’s Skin”
Sunday, October 17th, 7 PM PST
Dakota Noot & Christopher Anthony Velasco

Giallo cinema burst through the 1960s and ’70s with color, mystery, and kills. For “A Top in a Bottom’s Skin,” Dakota Noot and Christopher Anthony Velasco resurrect and queer the giallo, using a pre-recorded video on livestream. Velasco’s drag brings agency to women in the giallo genre, not waiting for characters like inept detectives, bartenders, and go-go boys to save her. Noot’s paper props and masks bring a comic, cartoonish quality to an already convoluted script and genre. Queerness was rare in Italian giallo: confined to minor characters or homoerotic titilation. Instead, Noot and Velasco get messy and deadly in their own narrative.

Bios:
Dakota Noot is a Los Angeles-based artist. He uses drawings, paintings, and installations to create animal-human hybrids that explore rural yet fantastical, queer identities. Originally from Bismarck, North Dakota, he continues to show in both North Dakota and Los Angeles, including solo and two-person shows at Highways Performance Space, MuzeuMM, and PØST. Noot has exhibited in group shows at Charlie James Gallery, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Torrance Art Museum, and LAST Projects. His series of cutout drawing-installations have been shown at LA Freewaves, Cerritos College Art Gallery, and Otis College. Noot graduated with a BFA in Visual Arts from the University of North Dakota (2015) and an MFA from Claremont Graduate University (2017). He is currently an Adjunct Professor at Oxnard College and Orange Coast College. His work has been featured in Hi-Fructose, the Fourdrinier, LUM Art Magazine, Visual Art Source, and The Fight Magazine.

Christopher Anthony Velasco is a photographer and performance artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. He emphasizes the queer brown body incorporating horror and camp aesthetics. Christopher received his Master of Fine Arts from UC Santa Barbara in 2019. He received his BFA from California Institute of the Arts. As a Getty Marrow Undergraduate Intern, Velasco interned at the Santa Monica Museum of Art (Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles) and UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center and Library. Velasco is an instructor at CSSSA (California State Summer School of the Arts). Velasco’s work has been featured in exhibitions at Art Center College of Design, AD&A Museum, Avenue 50 Studios, California Institute of the Arts, Hibbleton Gallery, the Getty Museum, and the Vincent Price Art Museum. In addition, he has also performed with Harry Gamoba, Jr., with Virtual Verite, Los Angeles Union Station, UC Santa Barbara, and LAST Projects.