Magic Circle Pit is based on the culture and aesthetics of hard-edge painting (specifically the work of Roy Kyooka) and hardcore punk of the 1980s and 90s. These paintings fuse together the imagery of hardcore punk, modernist abstraction, and the troubling legacy of fascist aesthetics of purity which sit near the heart of both visual traditions. The circular logos of hardcore bands, many of whom ‘broke through’ into mainstream consciousness during the 1990s, are refigured as portals or ruptures, and take on queer sensibilities which are coded as voids, openings, or orifices. These readings highlight the ways that these mostly masculinist, homosocial spaces have troubled and ambiguous relationships to queer attraction and desire.
This project was supported by SK Arts
