John and Billie go underground

John and Billie go underground is an exhibition by Maria Silk exploring San Francisco’s queer underground’s past and present through video, installation, and performance. The project stems from the rumored existence of a network of tunnels underneath San Francisco that connected the basements of Tenderloin gay bars. Setting aside the question of historical accuracy, the exhibition takes these rumors as the occasion for mythmaking and world-building, imagining these “homosexual tunnels” as the backdrop for a series of encounters between queer subjects across generations. Reinterpreting archival material from San Francisco’s storied queer past, the exhibition connects the city’s history to the continued displacement of queer underground artists and spaces in the present.

The exhibition takes its title from a new experimental play written by Silk and performed within the gallery by a cast of local performers. Working in a speculative mode, the play centers on John, a gay man in his 60s, and his friend and caretaker Billie (played by Silk), a trans woman in her 30s. When John and Billie wander into the tunnels by mistake, they find themselves at the mercy of Job, an oddball tunnel-dweller who serves as their guide and captor. Forming an uneasy family triangle, the three lost souls are forced to confront figures from the San Francisco’s queer past as well as their own unfinished business, as they struggle to figure out their future in the increasingly hostile landscape of the aboveground city.