Gerardo Velazquez – “Late Valentine Tape” Listening Party
A Closing Reception for Nervously Engendered: The Art of Gerardo Velazquez
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16
6 – 9 PM
COAGULA CURATORIAL
974 Chung King Rd, 90012
Part of The Getty’s PST: LA/LA Participating Gallery Program
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“Late Valentine Tape” is a collection of Bedroom Recordings, Band Rehearsals, and Demos from the last 3 years of Gerardo’s life.
12 song CD-R + 3 badge set on printed card + color 5.5 x 8.5 inkjet print.
Also available as a standard CD-R in printed sleeve.
The first 8 songs on this CD were originally titled “Valentine Tape”. These recordings were intended to be given as gifts to Gerardo’s friends for Valentine’s Day, 1991. To listen to these songs in any meaningful way requires that you know this one thing – that Gerardo had AIDS and knew he was dying.
Valentine’s Day came and went and Gerardo changed the artwork to read “The Late Valentine’s Tape”. So far as we know, copies were given to a handful of friends. The original was found in his things after he died on March 28, 1992. Gerardo was only 33.
This is music that needs to be approached as a document – a specific slice of time and circumstance. The lyrics and themes illustrate the feelings of an artist dying of poison, of infected blood; dying from lethal sex and deadly desire. They reflect the rage of someone dying in the midst of an epidemic that was weaponized by hate and allowed to spread by the politics of enforced silence. This is not entertainment – this is history.
