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# An Exhibition Mines the History of SoCal's Gay Motorcycle Clubs
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/an-exhibition-mines-the-history-of-socals-gay-motorcycle-clubs/
- Published: 2017-02-09T16:26:49.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:41:30.000Z
- Description: An exhibition at the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives restages performances and displays ephemera from Southern California's gay motorcycle clubs of the 1960s and '70s.
- Author: Matt Stromberg
- Tags: Art, Events, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:23 (2016, 2017, part 2)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/02/die-kraken.jpg)

Five Blue Max Motorcycle Club members in uniform jackets and Pickelhauben helmets seated on Harley Davidson Electra Glide motorcycles at curb in Glendale, California, c. 1970 (via one.usc.edu)

[*Sprayed*](http://one.usc.edu/die-kranken/?ref=hyperallergic.com)[ *with Tears*](http://one.usc.edu/die-kranken/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*,* an exhibition opening at the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, delves into the history of Southern California’s gay motorcycle clubsthat were a popular but underground phenomenon throughout the 1960s and ’70s, though there are still [a number of them that are active today](https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1AqiKiAa3rYPqRJ3tk30-ruLBZ7s&hl=en%5FUS&ll=12.983148364589896%2C-101.00829999999996&z=2&ref=hyperallergic.com). Mining photographs, film, audio recordings, objects, and ephemera held at the ONE Archives, LA-basedartist collective Die Kränken focuses on one of these clubs, Blue Max, and re-stages a performance that took place there annually between 1968 and 1993 titled “The Rose of No Man’s Land,” where a World War I fighter pilot is nursed back to health by a Red Cross nurse, played by a club member in drag. Die Kränkenwill also present a video homage to the Black Pipe, an LA gay leather bar that was raided by the police in 1972, and display screen-printed handkerchiefs that recall the “hanky code,” a surreptitious method of communicating sexual desire by placing color-coded handkerchiefs in one’s rear pants pocket. The opening reception will feature an appearance by the Satyrs Motorcycle Club, who proudly proclaim themselves to be the “[oldest running gay men’s motorcycle club](http://www.satyrsmc.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com)” in the world, dating back to 1954.

**When:** Opens Saturday, February 11, 6–9pm  
**Where:** ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries (909 West Adams Blvd, University Park, Los Angeles)

*More info* [*here*](http://one.usc.edu/die-kranken/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*.*