A new exhibition at Seventeen Gallery celebrates the life of Miss Shannon, a stalwart of the LGBTQ+ scene in San Francisco
The first time Joseph Wilson met Miss Shannon was outside of The Stud bar in San Francisco. “I was outside, having a cigarette in drag, and I noticed Shannon in her Mercedes. I just saw her white hair, sunglasses, and she was shining a torch outside her window.” She invited Wilson into her car – but not before asking “who are you? David Cameron’s son?” – and the rest, as they say, is history. Wilson says that Miss Shannon had no problem with being the subject of his documentary, revealing that as soon as she gave him her phone number “the messages started; you’ll see it in the show, its capital letters, always, and just relentless messaging messaging messaging. Whether it’s about her health, the illumnati, trans people.”
At the heart of Wilson’s new exhibition, LUV SHANNON X, is a recreation of Miss Shannon’s living room from her house in San Francisco. With its chaotic collection of mannequins, Polaroids, and empty pill bottles, the portrait of a woman begins to emerge. Miss Shannon, Wilson says, always wanted to be seen “the way that she put herself out on social media,” as an icon, something untouchable. “She didn’t want people taking pictures of her, she would have pictures she would give out to people so they could remember her the way she wanted to be remembered.” A fascinating tension emerges between this larger than life personality, desperate to be remembered at the height of her powers, and the quiet intimacy that comes with occupying this recreation of her lived environment.
It’s ironic then, that the version of Miss Shannon that Wilson most fondly remembers is the one embodied in the clutter and chaos of a living room, rather than the woman shown in the second room of the gallery on a blown up print, cigarette always dangling from her mouth. “I want people to be able to see the side that I got to see of Shannon,” a woman who wanted and thrived on attention but was still “vulnerable and very shy.” There’s something bittersweet about this; being introduced to a trans elder, and an underground icon, but only after she’s gone.
For Wilson, this act of remembrance has a distinctly political relevance as well. “The older generation of queer people are getting forgotten about,” Wilson says. He talks about Ted Brown, activist for the Gay Liberation Front, going to court because his husband was the victim of abuse in a care home, with Brown saying that people are forced “back into the closet” as they get older. There’s an air of loneliness and isolation to Miss Shannon’s room; the last room of the gallery shows a film on Miss Shannon next to a machine full of her Menthol Newports (she passed away from emphysema in 2021). Wilson even once asked Miss Shannon if she liked being part of the LGBT community, she simply said “I’m not.” Through Wilson’s act of recreation, a gap between generations can be bridged.
One thing that Shannon was always certain of was her own iconic status. WIlson says that on her mantlepiece, alongside images of Hollywood icons like Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, was an image of herself; this was the pantheon to which she belonged, and everyone else would learn that in time. Wilson says that one of the most important things about remembering Shannon is her point of view, the things that a life lived as wildly, openly, iconically as hers, can teach us. There’s an aphorism of Miss Shannon’s that Wilson is fond of: “I believe in common courtesy, but there comes a point where someone crosses the line and you’ve just gotta say get the fuck out of here.”
Wilson’s hope is that people who come to the show will be able to take some of Shannon away with them, particularly as we continue to live through a time in which the rights of trans people are under attack, there’s a poignant, punk wisdom to the words of Miss Shannon: her definition of common courtesy (and its limits), but more than that, “being true to yourself, and not giving a fuck what people think.”
LUV SHANNON X is open until July 28th at Seventeen Gallery, with live performances on the 20th, 21st, 24th, and 26th, at 5pm.
