Late to the Party

“Time is borrowed and it changes everything.”
—Wu Tsang, Wildness (2012)

I’m not sure when I became aware of Wu Tsang’s film , though it was likely through its wide exposure in 2012 as a work included in both the Whitney Biennial and the New Museum Triennial. I was enamoured by the descriptions of the film’s namesake – a weekly queer party at which performance artists, drag stars and experimental musicians were exalted. What drew my interest the most, however, was the unlikely main character, the Silver Platter, the long-standing Los Angeles gay bar where Tsang and a collective of young artist friends chose to host Wildness. Rather than narrating the story of the