Deck the Balls: Tom of Finland launch event and screenings

Deck the Balls Tom of Finland collection launch at House of Voltaire, plus screenings and late-night opening.

Join guest elves Ashish, Joe Bobowicz, Princess Julia and Hilary Lloyd to celebrate the launch of the new Tom of Finland capsule collection at House of Voltaire.

Plus special screenings surrounding the legacies of Tom of Finland, queer archiving and BDSM subcultures including P Staff's The Foundation and documentary shorts The Backstreet (dir. Romain Beck), and Les fantômes du hard (dir. Lazare Lazarus).

And the premiere of a new Hilary Lloyd film as part of Very High Frequency, her major current exhibition at Studio Voltaire.

Enjoy speciality cocktails by Crispin at Studio Voltaire. Please drink responsibly.

P Staff
The Foundation, 2015 (28 minutes)

The Foundation explores queer intergenerational relationships negotiated through historical materials. The film combines footage shot at the Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles — home to the archive of the erotic artist and gay icon and a community of people that care for it — with choreographic sequences shot within a specially constructed set. Staff's film explores the multiple layers, sub-communities, interpersonal relations, and erotic and artistic imaginaries that the site of the Foundation hosts, promotes, and projects.

Romain Beck
The Backstreet, 2024 (29 minutes)

The Backstreet is an intimate film exploration of four decades of desire, community, love and loss at the iconic London gay leather club: 'Sweat, moans, the haze of smoke and the rugged smell of leather. This is The Backstreet – London's secret haven for leathermen. After 37 years in existence, the club stands on the brink of permanent closure. Facing the demolition of their erotic haven, regulars and staff recount their memories – the sweaty darkroom encounters, a master-slave couple’s first kiss, a spiritual encounter during a BDSM session, and the terror and loss of the HIV pandemic. Meanwhile, the owner, the manager and a curator from the Museum of London go through boxes, finding erotic birthday cake designs, leather jockstraps and homophobic tabloid cuttings. As the space awaits demolition, what will The Backstreet’s legacy be?'

Lazare Lazarus
Les Fantômes du Hard, 2024 (28 minutes)

In August 2022, a group of squatters in Marseille discovered a treasure trove: the archives of the founder of France's first hard BDSM club, Mineshaft, which opened in 1967. What follows is a quest to trace the archives, pick up the pieces of history, and try to build a filiation, a dialogue with its ghost. Desire leaves traces – on bodies, in memories, in the flickering frames of old VHS tapes. Les fantômes du hard is a journey through these remnants, an attempt to reconstruct a lost history of hardcore sexuality in Marseille. From the legendary Mineshaft, France’s first hardcore BDSM club, to the rediscovery of its forgotten archives, this story is one of resistance, desire, and ghosts that refuse to fade.

About P. Staff

P. Staff is an artist based in Los Angeles, USA and London, UK. Staff's interdisciplinary practice explores the interpretation, regulation and discipline of queer and trans bodies. Between 2012 and 2016 they worked extensively with the Tom of Finland Foundation and its archives. Solo exhibitions have been held at Kunsthalle Basel (2023); LUMA, Arles (2021); Serpentine Galleries, London (2019); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2019); and Chisenhale Gallery, London (2015). Selected group exhibitions include the Whitney Biennale, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2024); 59th Venice Biennale (2022); and 13th Shanghai Biennale (2021).

About Romain Beck

Romain Beck has over a decade’s worth of experience editing documentary projects. Recently, he edited the upcoming feature Mother Vera, which won the Creativity Media First Look Award at Locarno Festival in 2023 and premiered at Vision du Reel 2024. His work has been recognised at IDFA 2022, Jihlava International Documentary Festival 2018, Hot Docs and South by South West film Festival 2017. The Backstreet is his directorial debut.

About Lazare Lazarus

Lazare Lazarus lives and works in Marseille. He draws and films bodies that open up like windows onto bunches of burning garrigue, onto solar landscapes that spill over onto the hot concrete. He imagines pornographic and botanical universes populated by characters who mingle in the margins of cities where vegetation abounds, free territories where one exposes and mats oneself to become one with the landscape.