Petrelis Files

SF Writer Arthur Evans May Be Honored at Scotland's GlasGay Fair

He was one of the modern American gay movement's most original thinkers and an activist to be reckoned with, who made many friendships and enemies in his long life. I first met Arthur Evans in 1987 during the AIDS plague years and we maintained a deep and warm and friendship together. You can refresh your memory, or learn about him for the first time, by reading his self-penned obituary.

This week was brightened with this note from abroad that touched me, and I think lots of Arthur's pals and adversaries will get a kick out of learning he and his writings may be part of a festival in the UK. I wrote back to Oliver Braid and suggested he contact Naphtali Offen, who was Arthur's best friend, and gave him his addy. There also may be others who wish to assist with how the fair presents Arthur's legacy.

If you wish to reach Oliver about the plans to honor Arthur at the GlasGay event, shoot him an email: OliverBraid[at]hotmail.co.uk. Here's his lovely note:

My name is Oliver Braid and I am an artist based in Glasgow, Scotland. This year I am working with my friend Marc Cairns, a designer from the collaborative group Pidgin Perfect, to curate Glasgay’s first annual visual arts programme. 

Glasgay is Scotland’s annual celebration of queer culture and this year, to mark their 21st anniversary in the city, the director has invited a selection of guest curators to programme different aspects of the festival. For our contribution, the visual arts section, we are keen to develop an investigation into queer relationships with the occult and esoteric. 

As part of this we are hoping to develop a strand of the exhibition that looks at the some of the ideas explored in Arthur Evans’ publications Witchcraft & the Gay Counterculture and Critique of Patriarchal Reason. 

We would really like to develop an Arthur Evans element to the project (perhaps an archive of previous work, a reading room or another suitable form) and so I am hoping to enquire as to whether you may be a good starting point for collating information about Evans’ work and life and if you would be available and interested in working with us on this. 

We are currently writing budgets and making additional funding applications, but the time frame we are looking at to deliver the work would be late October-early November 2014. 

We appreciate that with this short notice you may already be engaged but if you do have time in your schedule and would be interested in developing some ideas of how we can bring Evans’ work to the public in this format then it would be brilliant to hear your response and initial thoughts.