In an age when some persist on gilding the lily, 1209 Garage presents beautiful bastards, a visual literary exposition featuring works by visual artists, writers, models, carpenters, designers, magazines, and radio stations. beautiful bastards considers sub-cultural and undying mindsets created by the desire to exist: life, liberty, and the pursuit to be let alone. This group of bastards spans different generations, backgrounds, disciplines, and formal practices, but the works presented—many of which are newly completed projects designed specifically to be sited at 1209 Garage—share a common vision in which noise, attitude, dispossession, perversity, secret spaces, sex, and violence find, like perpetual weeds, ways of existing and disrupting current moral undercurrents. Classy if you’re rich; trashy if you’re poor. When others go high, they go low. Life is beautiful. It’s even more beautiful if you’re a bastard. - Melinda Shades

Mike Kelley. Christoph Büchel. Karle Gwen. Stanley Kubrick. Cady Noland. KNAC.COM. Mark Leckey. Douglas Melini. Melinda Shades. Wu Ming. Alfred Steiner. Ladies Love Lemons. Chris Watts. Jehu Santamaria. Brian Filosa. Sean Donovan. Diamante Cruz. Steven Parrino. Gnarly Magazine. Richard Prince. Andrew Jilka. House of Chingasos. Pier Paolo Pasolini. Ashley Bickerton. Aunt Clara. Current Resident

Note: Although some works were installed in-situ, other works were installed in different locations, at different times, and then documented. If you visit this page often you may see works installed in different 1209 spots. It’s not your faulty memory or you smoking too much weed, it’s intentional. Enjoy! - Melinda

"Not since Paul Schimmel's 'Helter Skelter' of 1992 has there been an exhibition so timely and untimely. During these tumultuous times, it is only fitting that this beautiful expression of existence take place in Texas, the heartland of the shithole that has become ‘America.’ Beautiful Bastards reveals to us a neo-Americana, a show about beauty--real beauty.” - The New York Times (September, 2020)

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Films.

  1. Heavy Metal Parking Lot, John Heyn, Jeff Krulik

  2. Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Amy Heckerling

  3. The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, Penelope Spheeris

  4. Metal Evolution, Sam Dunn, Scot McFadyen

  5. No Country for Old Men, The Cohen Brothers

  6. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Miloš Forman

  7. Full Metal Jacket, Stanley Kubrick

  8. Irréversible, Gaspar Noé

  9. Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola

  10. Falling Down, Joel Schumacher

  11. House of Games, David Mamet

  12. The Born Losers, Tom Laughlin

  13. Salo: 120 Days of Sodom, Pier Paolo Pasolini

knac-1209.jpg

What was KNAC 105.5 Long Beach?

Let’s put it this way, from 1986 to 1995, they were THE rock station to listen to. If you were into metal and rock, you would visit Los Angeles just for the opportunity to hear a radio station that was all rock—all the time! A loyal fan-base would record cassette tapes of this station, dub them, and share them with our friends in New York City, Mexico City, Berlin, Rio, Beijing, Hanoi, Tuscaloosa, and El Paso. It was awesome. Although they went off the air in 1995, they were revived in 1998 via the Internet. Thank God! Listen to KNAC.COM by clicking on the logo on the right.

“Dude, I’ve been hearing all this shit about how ‘everything is art.’ About how ‘everyone is walking on eggshells’. I say, motherfucker, I wear boots. Let me tell you, we had art; we had life. Let’s get it back. That’s why I’m in this show.” - Jehu Santamaria, master carpenter and one of the artists in the show, remarking to Sarmiento upon his acceptance to be included in this exhibition.

 

Readings.

  1. The Devil All the Time, Donald Ray Pollock

  2. American Psycho, Brett Easton Ellis

  3. The Secret History, Donna Tartt

  4. The Power of the Dog, Don Winslow

  5. No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy

  6. Vernon Subutex 1, Virginie Despentes

  7. Mac’s Problem, Enrique Vila-Matas

  8. 2666, Roberto Bolaño

  9. Empire of the Summer Moon, S.C. Gwynne

  10. Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion

  11. The Will to Power, Friedrich Nietzsche

  12. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver

  13. Muy Macho, Ray González

  14. Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, Larry McMurtry

  15. The Things We Don’t Do, Andrés Neuman

  16. Chevrolet GMC Truck: Parts & Accessories Catalog, Classic Industries

It’s metal if I say it’s metal. - SMS

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