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Rachel Mason
Biography
Rachel Mason is an artist, musician and filmmaker from Los Angeles. Best known in visual art and experimental music circles for her fantastical mixed-media performances, Mason has recorded 13 albums and has toured and exhibited at festivals including SXSW and Tribeca, and museums including the Whitney Museum, Queens Museum, LACMA, Detroit Museum of Contemporary Art. Mason has been praised in the ++New York Times++, Village Voice, Los Angeles Times, Flash Art, Art in America, Art News, and Artforum, among other publications. Her first feature film, THE LIVES OF HAMILTON FISH, premiered at Raindance in the UK and has toured festivals and museums internationally. HAMILTON FISH is an art house murder-ballad musical based on a true coincidence: two men died on the same day in 1936, both named Hamilton Fish, one a statesman, the other a serial killer.
Most recently, Mason directed the Netflix Original Documentary CIRCUS OF BOOKS, Executive Produced by Ryan Murphy. The film chronicles the eponymous iconic bookstore and gay porn shop that served as the epicenter for LGBT life and culture in Los Angeles. Unbeknownst to many in the community it served, the store was cultivated and cared for by Mason’s parents, Karen and Barry, a straight conservative Jewish couple. CIRCUS OF BOOKS is an intimate portrait of the Masons and their accidental journey to become one of the biggest distributors of hardcore gay porn in the United States.