Join us on Friday, Feb. 13, 6–9PM as we kick off Highly Favored with a special exhibit opening of JOY!, featuring the work of visual artist Nikko LaMere, at the Advocate & Gochis Galleries. Attendance is FREE and open to the community. (RSVP for the dance party on Saturday, Feb. 21 here.)
JOY! brings together two bodies of work—In the Night, eight years in the making, and the
2024 series Queer Fantasy. Both are born from joy and shaped by Nikko LaMere’s journey of self-discovery within Los Angeles’ underground queer scene.
JOY! lives in small, glowing moments: a shared glance on a dance floor in low light that warms the chest, a new song that pulls the listener into a soft trance, the sun resting on skin during a long walk through the city. At its core, it is an exploration of self-love.
Guided by community, self-expression, and the radical freedom to dream without restraint, this installation celebrates the people who expanded LaMere’s world—those who revealed that dreaming big is an act of love, courage, and becoming.
For LaMere, JOY! is not passive. It is chosen. It is practiced. It is a radiant form of resistance.
Rooted in Los Angeles’ queer nightlife, JOY! mirrors the ethos of Highly Favored, uplifting Black queer nightlife as a site where joy, resistance, and collective care converge.