Kenney Mencher

 

Sasha Wortzel, "For those of us who live at the shoreline (sunrise)," 2021 (featured in "Dreams of Unknown Islands" at PICA)

QUEER|ART EVENTS: SEPTEMBER 2022

The sun's setting on this summer in New York City.  Soak up the rays while you can, and get ready for a fall season of queer art!  In the city this September: Queer|Art|Film Co-Curator Adam Baran continues his new queer film series, Narrow Rooms, at Anthology Film Archives (September 8th, 7:30pm ET), Seyi Adebanjo and Nyala Moon appear in conversation (Gotham Week on September 17th, 11am ET), Multi-year QAM Mentor C. Finley has curated Tura Oliveira: What A Glory to Be So Euphoric and Weak (through September 29th at La MaMa Galleria) and it's your last chance to catch the work of 2011-2012 QAM Fellow Guadalupe Rosales and Current QAM Mentor Julie Tolentino at the Whitney Biennial (closes September 5th)! Plus, an abundance of exhibitions, performances and screenings elsewhere around the country and globe this month, too: work by Maia Cruz Palileo in LA and London, Sasha Wortzel in Portland, Lola Flash in Minneapolis and Cincinnati, Yoruba Richen in Milwaukee, Carlos Motta in Columbus, Monstah Black/Jacolby Satterwhite in Arkansas, Carlos Motta in Pittsburgh, Troy Montes-Michie in Houston, Mx Justin Vivian Bond in London, and Chitra Ganesh in San Diego! Double-Plus: A new book of poetry by Saeed Jones! More on these and much more below!  —Evan Scott, Newsletter Editor

I LOOK SO MUCH BETTER ON YOUR BROWSER! CLICK ME PLZ

WINNERS ANNOUNCED! 2021 BARBARA HAMMER LESBIAN EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKING GRANT

"A Sense of Place, or après moi, le déluge (2008)" by Desireena Almoradie and Barbara Malaran (courtesy of the artists)

Queer|Art is excited to announce the winners of the 2021 Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant, Desireena Almoradie and Barbara Malaran. The New York City-based collaborative duo will receive a $7,000 cash grant, as well as studio visits with members of the judges panel in support of their creative and professional development. Almoradie and Malaran were selected out of 108 applicants who applied for the Hammer Grant in its fifth year, winning for a project currently titled Untitled Kilawin Documentary. Set in the 1990s, against the backdrop of fierce patriarchy, racism, and lesbophobia, the film documents the revolutionary convergence of lesbian Filipinas who gathered for the first time in New York City to establish a loving, safe, and affirming community. The Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant is an annual grant awarded to self-identified lesbians for making visionary moving-image art. The grant is supported directly by funds provided by the estate of legendary lesbian experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer (1939-2019), and administered through Queer|Art by lesbians for lesbians, with a rotating panel of judges. This year’s judges included Amber Bemak, Suzy Halajian, and Aily Tanaka Nash. Read more about the award and winners here!

RESOURCES FOR RACIAL JUSTICE & UPCOMING DEADLINES

2020 Black Trans Liberation March, Brooklyn NY (image by Stephanie Keith)

Looking through our Racial Justice Resources page, here's a pick for September: Prison Abolition Resource Guide -  An extensive list of resources on many subtopics of Abolition, compiled by micah herskind and updated earlier this year. And a highlight from our other resources: 10 Helpful Hints for Crafting Compelling Applications - Industry leaders across artistic disciplines recently shared insights with Queer|Art|Mentorship applicants on how to create clearer and more compelling applications for arts opportunities in Queer|Art’s fourth annual Queer|Art Mock Panel series. Read their suggestions here! And a youth-oriented community highlight (worth repeating!): QT Art Camp is an emerging organization for trans and queer youth to participate in workshops and mentorships with adult trans and queer artists, to develop new skills, learn ways to visually express themselves, and foster community. Following their summer series of workshops including Analog Photography, Portrait Drawing, and Self Expression through Dance, they'll be posting info on their fall series soon! The workshops are open to queer and trans youth ages 13 - 19, and are free to attend. More here! For more, check out our Community Resources, including COVID-19 Artist Resources.

THIS MONTH'S EVENTS AND ACCESSIBLE  ARTWORKS BY QUEER|ART ARTISTS

Maia Cruz Palileo Sept. 3rd - Oct. 22nd: Wonder Women Sept. 16th - Oct. 22nd: Ghosts of Empires II Exhibitions (LA/London): 2020-2021 QAM Mentor Maia Cruz Palileo is featured in two group exhibitions in September. First, Jeffrey Deitch presents Wonder Women, curated by Kathy Huangat, featuring forty Asian American, Pacific Islander, and diasporic women and non-binary artists, and with a name taken from Genny Lim’s poem Wonder Woman. More here. Then, at Ben Brown Fine Arts, Larry Ossei-Mensah has curated Ghosts of Empires II. Ossei-Mensah writes, “This show will highlight the oversights in the historical narratives that we’ve been taught designed to focus on  cultural difference and articulate varying overlaps that exist within these communities.” More here.

Troy Montes-Michie Ongoing, through Sept. 4th: Rock of Eye Contemporary Arts Museum Houston: Sept. 23rd Publication/Exhibition (LA/Houston): Rock of Eye, the first museum solo exhibition of 2013-2014 QAM Fellow Troy Montes-Michie, is presented at the California African American Museum through September 4th, before moving to the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston on September 23rd. This exhibition brings together Montes-Michie's collages, drawings, sculptures, and installations that draw the contours of body and place.  It begins with, and departs from, the artist's past assemblages and collages that center magazine images of the Black male body and trace the social history and form of the zoot suit, a garment at the center of the 1943 attacks primarily on Mexican American, African American, and Filipino American youth in Los Angeles known as the Zoot Suit Riots.  An artist's book accompanies the exhibition. More here and here!

David Antonio Cruz / Doron Langberg Ongoing, through Sept. 5th: A Place for Me Exhibition (Boston): ICA Boston's group exhibition, A Place for Me, celebrates a new generation of artists at the vanguard of contemporary painting. 2017-2018 QAM Fellow David Antonio Cruz, Louis Fratino, 2015-2016 QAM Fellow Doron Langberg, Aubrey Levinthal, Gisela McDaniel, Arcmanoro Niles, Celeste Rapone, and Ambera Wellmann are propelling figurative painting’s recent revival by depicting what they love—their friends, lovers, and family; studio spaces and homes; and the scenes that make up their everyday. More here.

Guadalupe Rosales / Julie Tolentino Ongoing, through Sept. 5th: The Whitney Biennial  Exhibition (NYC): The Whitney Biennial includes two artists in the QAM cohorts. 2011-2012 QAM Fellow Guadalupe Rosales, and Current QAM Mentor Julie Tolentino (who presents work with Ivy Kwan Arce). Multi-Year QAM Mentor Pamela Sneed is also featured in a video work by Coco Fusco. More on the Biennial and their works here.

Adam Baran Sept. 8th, 7:30pm ET: Narrow Rooms film series / Joseph Despins & William Dumaresq's 1971 film, Duffer Screening (NY): Narrow Rooms, curated by filmmaker and writer Adam Baran, continues in September! After 12 years co-curating the artist-selected Queer|Art|Film series and programming for mainstream LGBT film festivals, Baran finally gets to pick his own favorite flicks for adventurous audiences at Anthology Film Archives, an institution that has celebrated edgy, shocking, groundbreaking gay cinema for over 50 years. This month: Joseph Despins & William Dumaresq's 1971 film, Duffer. Duffer is a handsome lad torn between two lovers: a tender sex worker called Your Gracie, who squeezes Duffer in between her regular punters; and Louis Jack, a deranged older man who loves heavy torture, anal sex, and misogyny. Duffer struggles to make sense of his willingness to submit to Louis Jack’s increasingly fucked-up sadism, but when his master suggests the two men start a family – the old-fashioned way – things get really twisted. Stephanie Bailey offered a counterpoint in her review for ARTFORUM, writing “all sensationalism aside, this is a tender rumination on pleasure – seeking it, feeling it, and giving it – a story that charts the intense stirrings for something one doesn’t quite know or understand.” More here!

Tourmaline / Sasha Wortzel Sept. 9th, 3pm MT: Mountain / Time: Smuggler Mine Screening (Aspen): Work by 2012-2013 QAM Fellow Sasha Wortzel and Current QAM Mentor Tourmaline will be screened for Aspen Art Museum's Smuggler Mine, on the final weekend of the Mountain / Time exhibition. The work will screen as part of Michael B. Gillespie's program, Unspoken Dreams of Light. More here.

Sasha Wortzel Sept. 10th - Nov. 20th: Dreams of Unknown Islands  Sept. 10th, 12pm PT: Artist Talk followed by Opening  Sept. 11th, 2pm PT: Film Screening Exhibition (Portland): PICA presents Dreams of Unknown Islands, a solo exhibition of work by 2012-2013 QAM Fellow Sasha Wortzel. The exhibition transforms the architecture of the museum into an ecological dreamscape in which coastal shores, animal migrations, and the shifting colors of the sky are transmitted through ritual sound, projected film, and a set of functional sculptures housing five listening islands that urge us to pause, rest, and contemplate. More on the show here / screening here.

Lola Flash Sept. 13th - Dec. 10th: A Picture Gallery of the Soul Sep. 30th - Feb 12th: Images on which to build Exhibitions (MN / OH): Current QAM Mentor Lola Flash will show work in two group exhibitions in September. First, in Minneapolis at the Katherine E. Nash gallery, A Picture Gallery of the Soul, a group exhibition of over 100 Black American artists whose practice incorporates the photographic medium. More here. Then, at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Images on which to build, 1970s-1990s. The show, through photographic documentation of activism, education, and media production within trans, queer, and feminist grassroots organizing, reveals the technologies through which influential image cultures were constructed and circulated. More here.

Saeed Jones Sept. 13th: Alive at the End of the World Publication: Coffee House Press presents a new book of poetry by Current QAM Mentor Saeed Jones, titled Alive at the End of the World. Pierced by grief and charged with history, the collection confronts our everyday apocalyspes. In haunted poems glinting with laughter, Jones explores the public and private betrayals of life as we know it. With verve, wit, and elegant craft, Jones strips away American artifice in order to reveal the intimate grief of a mourning son and the collective grief bearing down on all of us.  And, the cover photograph was taken by none other than Current QAM Mentor Lola Flash! More here.

Yoruba Richen Sept. 14th/15th: The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks Screening (WI): The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, the documentary from directors Johanna Hamilton and Multi-year QAM Mentor Yoruba Richen, is the opening night film of the 2022 Cultures and Communities film Festival. The film tells the unexpected story of Parks and her life beyond the historic bus boycott, The Rebellious Life reveals the intent behind her activism, her radical politics, and her courage. More here.

Carlos Motta Sept. 16th - Dec. 30th: Your Monsters, Our Idols Exhibition (Columbus): The Wexner Center for the Arts presents a thematic solo exhibition of work by Multi-year QAM Mentor Carlos Motta, titled Your Monsters, Our Idols. The exhibition brings together a selection of photographs, films, sculptures, drawings, and multimedia installations from the late 1990s through today that reflect two major areas of exploration in his practice: postcolonial subjectivity and democratic participation. More here.

Seyi Adebanjo / Nyala Moon Sept. 17th, 11am ET: Transcendent Storytelling Event (Columbus): As part of the Gotham Week at the Navy Yard, hear from exciting, new voices in trans cinema including alumni of the Fatales Forward: Trans Stories program, a trailblazing fellowship from Film Fatales created to uplift trans and gender-diverse filmmakers by fostering an enduring collaborative community of creators, as they discuss their filmmaking process, the state of representation, and the power of storytelling as a tool for meaningful cultural change. 2013-2014 QAM Fellow Seyi Adebanjo and 2020-2021 QAM Fellow Nyala Moon will speak as part of the conversation Transcendent Storytelling. RSVP here!

The Illustrious Blacks / Jacolby Satterwhite Sept. 23rd - 25th: Format Festival Exhibition/Performance (AR): 2011-2012 QAM Fellow