THE ARMORY SHOW

EDJI Gallery is pleased to present Two Bucks; a fictional Midwestern queer dive bar that doubles as a stage set, a time machine, and a memorial. It’s a place where different generations of queer individuals mingle across decades, bound together by the flicker of memory, imagination, and loss.

The seed is family history. Martin’s uncle Marti was a journalist in Wisconsin who passed away of HIV in the 1990s. Because his uncle’s story was never told, Martin began researching his life. This led Martin to archives of regional queer life: vanished bars, long-out-of-print publications, advertisements for places that no longer exist. Out of this patchwork he builds a speculative history, one that speaks to queerness in rural America - a history barely recorded and often erased.

The works here are hand-built and hand-finished: airbrushed yellows under scratched grisaille drawings, producing images that hover between painting and graffiti. Their surfaces feel worn, resistant, improvised - much like the DIY spaces they depict. Elsewhere, pool cues morph into decorative panels, beer cans into clover charms, and a grungy handmade lamp hangs as both beacon and relic.

Everything carries a double edge. The $2 bill that gives Two Bucks its name is rare, obsolete, like a scrap of memory. The white-tailed deer, Midwestern emblem of masculinity, becomes queered when paired. Masquerade posters and clown troupes hint at chosen families, at the joy and absurdity that coexist with struggle.

The result is an environment that is both affectionate and mournful. Martin’s imagined bar is not documentary; it’s a kind of wishful reconstruction, filling the gaps left by history with invention. If the past is gone, he suggests, we can still picture it, make it tangible, even invite others to step inside.

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PRESS HIGHLIGHT :

EDJI Gallery listed among Artnews’ Top 10 Booths at The Armory Show.