Join The Sodomite Invasion virtual book launch with curator and author, Lorenzo Fusi, and Griffin Art Projects director, Lisa Baldissera, followed by a Q&A.

The Sodomite Invasion: Experimentation, Politics and Sexuality in the work of Jimmy DeSana and Marlon T. Riggs documents an exhibition of the same name curated by Lorenzo Fusi within the Griffins’ Ethics of Care framework in 2020.

Written during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the publication offers unique insight on the life and work of DeSana and Riggs and features original research and material as well as a long-form interview with Riggs, reprinted with permission. The publication also creates space to revisit the cultural, artistic and activist relations between Canada and the US at the apex of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s and onward.

Lorenzo Fusi (b. 1968) is the Artistic Director and Curator of the I Yerevan Biennial. He was the Artistic Director of PIAC (Prix International d’Art Contemporain) of the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco (2014-2020), and the Visiting Academic Curator at the Alberta University of the Arts, where he directed the Illingworth Kerr Gallery between 2016-2018. Previously, he was the Director of Open Eye Gallery, one of the oldest not-for-profit photography galleries in the UK. Prior to this appointment, Fusi was the International Curator at the Liverpool Biennial, for which he curated the 2010 and 2012 renditions, titled Touched and The Unexpected Guest. Between 2001 and 2009 he was the Chief Curator at Palazzo delle Papesse Contemporary Art Centre, to then became the Contemporary Art Curator of the Santa Maria della Sca-la museum hub in Siena (Italy). Fusi regularly lectures at universities and has a portfolio of around 100 curated exhibition projects and as many publications and almost 200 commissions.

Other contributors to the book include: Lyle Ashton Harris, Chuck Kleinhans, Julia Lesage, and Robert F. Reid–Pharr.