Loft 112 celebrates Pride and Andy Warhol’s Factory
By Rachel Woodward, September 1 2016 —
Loft 112 functions as a loft space in downtown Calgary where Steve Gin has lived since 2003. Gin is the founder of Teatro Berdache — the first queer theatre company in the city — and acts as a board member to Loft 112. In addition to being a home
to some, the space is a multidimensional creative vehicle for literature and art.
Gin says Loft 112 helps bring artistic communities together and foster creative connections in the city.
“You can bring together different groups of people and artists to just mingle and have a great time and to support each other’s work,” he says.
Partnering with Calgary Pride, Loft 112 will host their third “Factory party” — a combination of queer celebration and the visual work of Andy Warhol. This year, the party is titled SNAP! and will take place on September 2 in the space.
“The whole wacky world of Andy Warhol [is] the ultimate expression of interdisciplinary arts, because the Factory itself was such a breeding ground for different kinds of art, be it printmaking, painting, sculpture, dance, theatre, music and such,” Gin says. “We decided last year that we were going to start throwing these Factory parties where we would invite different artist groups to get together and recreate Andy Warhol’s Factory in a contemporary context.”
Loft 112 worked with other organizations such as the Coming Out Monologues and Fairy Tales Queer Film Festival for Pride events. The Coming Out Monologues partnered with Loft 112 to present readings around the theme of “My First Queer Kiss” on August 31 at Charbar.
Fairy Tales will be a large aspect of the Factory 112 event, as screenings will show in the upstairs apartment of the loft in an intimate bedroom showing for guests to snuggle up.
Calgary-born queer artist Lisa Heinricks will display her work in the loft. Her exhibition features colourful portrait-style art.
“[The works] employ a technique that is actually quite similar to Andy Warhol’s original 1950’s pen and ink drawings, so they are colourful, they are line-driven and interestingly enough there’s a mixture of celebrity portraits, friends and ordinary people,” says Gin. “It is low-brow and high-brow mixed together. You can find Judy Garland coked up beside someone who just stumbled in off the street.”
Factory 112: SNAP! will take place at Loft 112 on September 2 and will be the third Factory event presented by Loft 112. Tickets are $10 at the door.
For more information, visit loft112.org