Artist Sean Fader Brings a Fabulous Rebellion to Paris

During Paris Photo week, Brigitte Mulholland Gallery unveils a cosmic rebellion that is as radiant as it is radical. “With Wit We Rise: The Fabulous Rebellion of the F.A.G.”, the first solo exhibition in Paris by New York–based artist Sean Fader, transforms the gallery at 81 rue de Turenne into an interstellar battleground where queerness becomes both prophecy and power. Through monumental photographs and sculptural relics, Fader stages a mythic revolution that fuses camp, satire, and history into a spectacular act of resistance.

A Queer Space Opera

At first glance, Fader’s new body of work reads like a baroque sci-fi epic—equal parts Star Wars, Versailles, and drag cabaret. The exhibition’s fictional universe, the Federated American Globe (F.A.G.), faces invasion by the Cheezmalite Empire—a plague of orange spores that infects hosts with fascist and puritanical ideologies. Against this backdrop, Fader introduces a pantheon of queer heroes: Barbara the Warrior Princess, Claude Cahun, General of the Pink Pony Army, The Mommy Joan, The Daddy of the Dunes, and The Daughter of Tides. Together they mount a dazzling resistance—“a fabulous rebellion,” as Fader calls it—fighting tyranny not with weapons, but with wit, beauty, and humor.

The show’s tone is defiant and deliciously theatrical. Each tableau channels Enlightenment portraiture through the lens of intergalactic fantasy. Satin robes and armor gleam under cinematic light; baroque gestures collide with drag performance. Every image is double-coded—ironic yet sincere, comic yet courageous. As the artist reminds us, “Wit is mightier than war.”

History Meets Camp

Fader’s signature use of self-portraiture runs throughout the series. He appears as a clone army—a leather-clad, mustachioed hybrid of Tom of Finland and Peter Marino—battling an enormous orange sandworm on the beaches of Normandy. Around him orbit collaborators and friends from both France and New York, including Nicole Eisenman, Tamara Gonzales, Ryan Wilde, and Kahlos Ephémère, alongside gallerist Brigitte Mulholland herself.

“The show’s tone is defiant and deliciously theatrical,”

Shot primarily in France, the works also reference historical figures like Claude Cahun, the Surrealist artist and World War II resistance fighter who rejected binary gender; Louis XIV and the Duke of Orléans; and the Chevalier d’Éon, the 18th-century spy and first person to have their gender legally recognized. In Fader’s reimagined mythology, these icons of French history become avatars of queer resistance, rewritten into a universe where their stories continue to evolve and inspire.

Laughter as Liberation

Beneath the glittering surface, Fader’s work strikes at the core of political and cultural urgency. “With Wit We Rise” expands his career-long interest in how photography performs identity and power. His past series, including Insufficient Memory and Queer American Memorials (now in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum and Buffalo AKG Art Museum), transformed sites of violence into spaces of resilience. Here, Fader pushes that transformation further—beyond the archive and into the cosmos.

By turning camp into a weapon and laughter into a shield, the artist reframes humor as a form of survival. The spectacle becomes strategy; the joke becomes justice. Through this lens, The Fabulous Rebellion of the F.A.G. is not just an aesthetic fantasy—it’s a manifesto for creative resistance.

“The artist reframes humor as a form of survival,”

“Art and queerness are always among the first things attacked under fascism,” Fader has noted. In his Paris debut, he answers that threat with a triumphant vision: mascaraed warriors rising against oppression, their defiance choreographed in glitter and grandeur.

Practical Information

“Sean Fader: With Wit We Rise – The Fabulous Rebellion of the F.A.G.”
Presented by Brigitte Mulholland Gallery
81 rue de Turenne, 75003 Paris
On view during Paris Photo week, November 2025

For visitors navigating the vibrant cultural circuit of Paris Photo, this exhibition offers not only a moment of levity but also a vital reminder: in the face of tyranny—real or imagined—queer joy and wit remain unstoppable forces.