The Fairoaks Project
PHOTOS BY FRANK MELLENO

July 17 - August 2
Opening Reception: Sat., July 24 @ 7:00-8:30pm
featuring a musical performance by The Boyfriend

An exhibition of Polaroid photographs taken by Frank Melleno during the spring and summer of 1978 at the Fairoaks Hotel, a San Francisco bathhouse.  Melleno’s snapshot aesthetic allows the viewer to wander the halls of the bathhouse over 30 years ago, and begin to understand the playful, buoyant mood that was shared by the partygoers. The gay bathhouse party culture of the 1970’s has become a mythical experience with little visual record. 

Situated in a refurbished Victorian apartment building in a residential neighborhood, The Fairoaks was known for its laid-back and racially integrated ambiance. Melleno’s images capture an aspect of gay life rarely seen in photographs from the time: sexually candid encounters that are authentic, spontaneous and often affectionate.  The dark storm of drug abuse and pandemic disease that would soon overtake the community is not visible in these celebratory pictures.

Melleno’s collection of Polaroids was put in a box shortly after they were shot and have not been seen until this year. Many of the images contain nudity and frank erotic scenes, but they also capture men dressed in festive attire and engaged in other aspects of the counter-culture lifestyle the Fairoaks promoted. Many artists lived at the hotel, and ongoing therapy-support groups and monthly theme parties enhanced the Fairoaks’ reputation as a neighborhood center for gay men as much as a bathhouse.

While The Fairoaks Hotel closed not long after these pictures were taken its brief but colorful legacy is well documented in this exhibit. The Fairoaks Project not only serves as a unique opportunity to present rare images to a wider public, but also places them within the historical context of a bygone era.

The Boyfriend