Saturday, November 1, 2025 at 12:00 AM to Sunday, November 16, 2025 at 11:59 PM
Human Resources, Los Angeles
**Panteha Abareshi at Human Resources Los Angeles (HRLA)** Press Preview:** **Friday, October 31, 2025, 7–9pm Exhibition Opening: November 1, 2025, 12–6pm (gallery hours), 7–9pm (opening reception) Gallery Hours: Wednesday–Sunday, 12–6pm or by appointment LOS ANGELES — Human Resources Los Angeles (HRLA) presents *CAREOTICS: on giving and taking*, a solo exhibition by Panteha Abareshi that examines how the disabled body is relegated to the fringes of visibility and yet made into a spectacle, bringing a complex duality to the nature of disability as performance. For Abareshi, the absence of autonomy makes room for fetishism to blossom, as the disabled individual is made into a tool for the able-bodied viewer to use as linguistic metaphor and/or as sexualized fetish object. In their work, the disabled body becomes a vessel for the taboo corporeal fears and desires of the able-bodied audience. *CAREOTICS: on giving and taking* is organized by Jennifer Doyle, Caroline Ellen Liou, and Jeanne Vaccaro. Major support for the exhibition is provided by the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, with additional funding from the English Department at the University of California, Riverside. **[Panteha Abareshi](https://www.panteha.com/)’s **artistic practice is rooted in their existence as a chronically ill/disabled body contending with multiple medical illnesses, at the foundation of which is sickle cell zero beta thalassemia— a genetic blood disorder that causes debilitating pain and bodily deterioration, both of which increase with age. Their work explores the complexities of living within a body that is highly monitored, constantly examined, and made to feel like a specimen, critically interrogating the sick/disabled body’s place within medical institutions. **Exhibition Programs** **Exhibition Walkthrough with Panteha Abareshi and Jeanne Vaccaro** Sunday,** **November 2, 2025 | 2–4pm | Human Resources, Los Angeles (HRLA) **Reading by Panteha Abareshi, moderated by Johanna Hedva** Saturday, November 8, 2025 | 7–9pm | Human Resources, Los Angeles (HRLA) Panteha Abareshi shares the intimate, the hyper-personal, and the crip-theoretical in this reading of unreleased writing. Beginning with fictive pieces of an autobiographical nature, the reading will also include the recitation of the poetics featured in the exhibition, as well as new written work around the pieces presented in *CAREROTICS: on giving and taking. *Followed by a Q&A with writer, artist, and musician Johanna Hedva. **FULL FRONTAL CRIP: A Cripples-To-The-Front Event** November 13, 2025 | 6–11pm, 8pm Performance | LINT [fka NAVEL], 418 Venice Blvd. Los Angeles, 90015 | Tickets available on [Eventbrite.com](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1741420007119?aff=oddtdtcreator), pay what you can The world we move through, the space we inhabit–– these are fundamentally inaccessible in their physical architecture, but also in their social and emotional frameworks. There is rarely a space for collective being that is accessible and brings the other to the front. So come together for a night of music, movement, stillness, dancing, sitting, and collectiveness as we bring the Cripple to the front. All bodies welcome, all bodies wanted. Let’s party in pain, let’s be together. FULL FRONTAL CRIP. Performance by Panteha Abareshi and Peter Kalisch, to be followed by a DJ set by Alima Lee. **Fetish Material and Pornographic Screening and Lecture** Friday, November 14, 2025 | 7:30–9pm | Whammy! Analog Media, 2514 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, 90026 Join us for a screening/sharing of pornographic and fetishistic materials collected and examined by Panteha Abareshi over the course of their research. The artist will lead a lecture-based discussion around the sick/Crip body’s representation in these explicit materials. This program will be an exploration of how the disabled body is made into and used as [sex] object, and an interrogation of consent, control, pleasure and power through a close examination of a slew of porno vids, fetish pics and kinky JPEGs. *Please note: 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗠 𝗜𝗦 𝗡𝗦𝗙𝗪 & 𝟭𝟴+, bear in mind that we will be watching and discussing explicit pornographic material, and some of these may be difficult and challenging to view. This program is first and foremost a safe space of non-judgement, but also one dedicated to pushing into what is most taboo, unknown and uncomfortable as a means of expanding how we know, see and image the sick/Crip subject.* Exhibition Walkthrough with Panteha Abareshi and Ron Athey Sunday,** **November 16, 2025 | 2–4pm | Human Resources, Los Angeles (HRLA) Add to calendar Google Calendar iCalendar Outlook 365 Outlook Live