Bird Circuit 90069

Artwork by Vojislav Radovanović

Bird Circuit 90069 brings together smaller and mid-size works on canvas and paper that interweave myth, queer history, and personal narrative. Building on artist Vojislav Radovanović’s earlier project Bird Circuit, this iteration locates itself within the heart of West Hollywood, a place whose cultural and social histories are intrinsically connected to LGBTQ+ life and community.

In the past, many LGBTQ+ venues used code names to covertly signal themselves as places of queer refuge and connection during times of intense social and legal oppression. Often the first word of the bar’s name was a color, and the second word was a bird. This was known as the ‘bird circuit’ – in the middle of the 20^th century, you could visit any urban area in the country and usually find a ‘Blue Parrot’ or a ‘Black Swan’ or a ‘White Swallow’ such like. It is unknown exactly where the term originated from; it may have been derived from a cluster of bars located along Third Avenue in New York City in the early 1950s. The bars had such names as the Blue Parrot (on East 53rd Street), the Golden Pheasant (on East 48th Street) and the Swan. Police raids eliminated the bars by the late 1960s.  The earliest known reference to Bird Circuit in print was in Tennessee Williams’ play Camino Real, which is set in a fictional, tropical town at the end of the Camino Real. The first known LGBTQ+ establishment with a name following this naming pattern is The White Swan on Vere Street, in London, England, which was raided in 1810 during the so-called Vere Street Coterie.

Several works in this exhibition pay homage to historic LGBTQ bars and clubs in West Hollywood and Los Angeles, such as the Red Raven, Blue Parrot, and Flamingo. Through painting and drawing, Radovanović conjures a poetic aviary where birds become metaphors for freedom and coded identity. Radovanović transforms these hidden sanctuaries into surreal images, often combining male portraiture with dreamlike landscapes and feathered figures that shimmer with history and desire. Bird Circuit 90069 celebrates queer resilience, acknowledging a lineage of coded survival while reimagining it as a vibrant, contemporary myth.

Born in 1982 in Yugoslavia, Vojislav Radovanović is a Los Angeles-based multimedia artist whose practice explores the immigrant experience, LGBTQ+ identity, collective memory, and the natural world. Coming of age during a period of political unrest and war, his work frequently employs motifs of birds and wild plants as symbols of resilience, adaptation, and borderless migration. Radovanović, who earned his BA from the University of Fine Arts in Belgrade, has exhibited at venues like Lancaster Museum of Art and History, Torrance Art Museum, and internationally at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris and Mall Galleries in London.

Curated by City of West Hollywood Arts Division. For more information contact Mike Che, Arts Coordinator.