Kenney Mencher

 

In-progress shot of solar system within the "ARCANUM" Cyber Gallery, produced with gabbah baya and Natalie Valcourt

QUEER|ART EVENTS: NOVEMBER 2020

Get lost in space with ARCANUM, the 2020 Queer|Art Annual Exhibition, plus much more... Oh, first off: VOTE! Now that we got that out of the way... Phew! October was a busy one for the Queer|Art fam–we celebrated our 2019-2020 Queer|Art|Mentorship Fellows, as well as Julie Tolentino and Yulan Grant as the winners of the 2020 Queer|Art Prize, at the QAM Annual Party, and launched ARCANUM, the Queer|Art Annual Exhibition. For November, take your time exploring the wild and immersive world the artists have created, and join them for four events throughout the month, both in person and online (November 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st - more info below!). Plus: Drowsenberg, a new chilling/thrilling camp offering by 2011-2012 QAM Fellow Justin Sayre, streams November 1st Two group exhibitions featuring 2013-2014 QAM Fellow GOODW.Y.N  New work by 2019-2020 QAM Fellow Raja Feather Kelly, in collaboration with Madeleine George  Work by 2016-2017 QAM Fellow Rodrigo Moreira in The Immigrant Artist Biennial This is an Address, a short film by 2012-2013 QAM Fellow Sasha Wortzel, now streaming on Field of Vision New streaming episodes directed by QAM Mentors: Netflix's Grand Army (two episodes directed by Silas Howard) and HBO Max's Equal (episode directed by Kimberly Reed)  Don't forget: on our site, we now have a dedicated page for Community Resources, including COVID-19 Artist Resources, as well as the Queer|Art|Mentorship Giving Circle, to provide direct financial aid to QAM Artists who need help covering their basic needs during the pandemic.    More on these, online-accessible works, and November events below! - Evan Scott, Newsletter Editor

ARCANUM The 2019-2020 Queer|Art|Mentorship Annual Exhibition October 29 - January 7

In-progress shot of María José Maldonado's dreamscape within the “ARCANUM” Cyber Gallery, produced in collaboration with gabbah baya and Natalie Valcourt

Queer|Art is pleased to announce the 2019-2020 Queer|Art|Mentorship Annual Exhibition: ARCANUM, open from October 29, 2020 through January 7, 2021. The exhibition features new and ongoing work by the graduating Fellows of the organization’s celebrated Queer|Art|Mentorship (QAM) program and comprises interactive multimedia installations and events focused on revitalizing the intergenerational and interdisciplinary art of storytelling. Combining both digital components and outdoor activations throughout New York City, the sprawling exhibition includes a virtual gallery with game-like installations, outdoor performances, and live-streamed readings, artist talks, and screenings. ARCANUM is curated by Anthonywash.Rosado, and includes work by: Brian Gonzalez, Patrick G. Lee, María José Maldonado, Felli Maynard, Olaiya Olayemi, Sarah Sanders, and Sarah Zapata.  The centerpiece of ARCANUM is a virtual gallery, hosted on the Queer|Art website for the duration of the exhibition. Entering the website, visitors will find the traditional gallery format has been alchemized into a cosmic dreamscape, complete with seven orbiting planets uniquely constructed by the Fellows. Within these self-contained worlds, produced in collaboration with artists and digital engineers gabbah baya and Natalie Valcourt, each Fellow offers their own stories as told through their chosen media. At the nucleus of the exhibition’s virtual galaxy is the Ofrenda (Altar) to Queer Ancestor Artists, which features artworks by Afro-diasporic and Queer ancestors assembled in collaboration with VisualAIDS, The LGBT Community Center, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. More on the exhibition's November events below, and on December/January events here!

Olaiya Olayemi: ado: a (re)mixed media installation  Saturday, November 7th, 3-3:30pm ET Hudson River, NYC (Location w/RSVP) QAM Fellow Olaiya Olayemi's ado: a (re)mixed media installation is a site-specific performance ritual that takes place near the Hudson River. It fuses sound, movement, text, and visual installation. It is a celebration. It is a jubilation. It is a homecoming. It is making lemonade out of lemons. It is bitterness turned sweet. It is a rapture, a riff, and a rupture. it is a conjuring, a divination, and a possession. It is the past, present, and future converging. audience-participant-witnesses will be invited to wash their hands with rose water and give offerings of oranges to Oshun.  More info and RSVP here

Sarah Sanders: In My Name   Saturday, November 14th, 4-5pm ET Abrons Arts Center Outdoor Amphitheater In My Name is a mostly-solo theatre piece by QAM Fellow Fellow Sarah Sanders using original music, ritual, personal narrative, and emails to the former White House press secretary to grapple with the ways that Sarah's whiteness and American Jewish identity intersect— and to ask (where) does spirituality fit into all this? More info and RSVP here

Patrick G. Lee: KQT Project Community Screening  Thursday, November 19th, 6:30-8:30pm ET Queer|Art|Mentorship Film Fellow Patrick G. Lee shares scenes from his upcoming documentary, KQT Project. The film follows a crew of queer and trans nightlife performers in Seoul as they navigate life during pandemic times, all while joyfully rejecting societal pressures to conform. The interactive screening will invite attendees to participate in the filmmaking process by discussing reactions to the scenes, asking questions of the film team, and sharing their hopes for how the final film shapes up.  More info and RSVP here

Brian Gonzalez: Invisible Violence                 Saturday, November 21st, 5:30-6:30pm ET  Norwood Club Garden, NYC QAM Fellow Brian Gonzalez shares a live video experience inspired by the supernatural world of his upcoming feature film, Those Who Didn't Run, set in 1941 on a farm along the Texas/Mexico border. Illustrated as an ongoing visual study titled Invisible Violence, the work becomes a visual requiem for the Mexican farm workers who were burned alive or wounded in the routine gasoline baths at the Mexican border nearly a century ago. This outdoor performance will be accompanied by an original acapella performance by composer Renzo Vitale, performed live by members of the BARE Opera. RSVP here

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

Justin Sayre November 1st, 8-9:30pm ET: Drowsenberg 2011-2012 QAM Fellow Justin Sayre regales the masses with his sixth(!) new play of 2020, Drownsenberg, streaming November 1st, 8 pm ET, directed by Tom Detrinis. What is Drowsenberg? The most haunted place in all of the New York Colony in 1760, of course. When a young heiress, Hildabelle Van Flikker, is preparing to take her place in the bustling society of New York, her guardian hires a tutor to help her acclimate herself to a new life, "down-colony." Enter Preposterous Bleck, a music teacher with a history all his own. A hilarious take on the works of early American lore, expect chills and thrills to help round out Halloween. More info and tickets here

Melissa Li November 6th, 4pm ET: Panel discussion on Interstate Duke University's Theater Studies Program will host a virtual panel discussion with Kit Yan and 2012-2013 QAM Fellow Melissa Li on November 6th at 4pm ET. Panelists Jennifer C. Nash, Esther Kim Lee, and Yun Emily Wang, along with the artists, will discuss a performance of Interstate, and explore intersectional identities, performance, and the political potentials of storytelling. More info here

QUEER|ART|FILM: THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME November 9th, 8pm ET: Brontez Purnell presents Gregg Araki's Totally F***ed Up Organized by curators Adam Baran and Heather Lynn Johnson, this season of Q|A|F takes a close look at chosen family and notions of "home" during a time when America is forced to examine its atrocities against Black lives and the damaging effects of COVID-19. November: Gregg Araki's Totally F***ed Up. Presenter Brontez Purnell writes that the 1993 film "encapsulates the Gen x queer angst aesthetic that is now a product of yore in these oh so boring times where the term 'queer' has been completely co-opted by fuckin' poseurs!  (oh c'mon! you know it's true!) I remember watching this as a teenager in my shitty Southern town and prayed that I would move to California one day and be as cool as the kids in this movie- and sure a fuckin' nuff- I did. This movie is like if Kids had been queer and had a story line that made sense- if you get the picture. A New Queer Cinema CLASSIC through and through!”  RSVP here

Raja Feather Kelly November 16th: New work with Madeleine George As part of Theater in Quarantine, a pandemic performance laboratory from Joshua William Gelb and Katie Rose McLaughlin, a new work by Pulitzer Prize finalist Madeleine George and 2019-2020 QAM Fellow Raja Feather Kelly will premiere on November 16th. The new work is part of La MaMa and CultureHub's Experiments in Digital Storytelling and will premiere on Ars Nova's new digital platform, Ars Nova Supra. More forthcoming here

Harrison David Rivers November 24th: we are continuous 2011-2012 QAM Fellow Harrison David Rivers' play, we are continuous, will be performed as an immersive radio show, available beginning November 24th from the Geva Theatre Center. The play centers on Ora and her son, Simon. They've always got each other's backs. They’ve even mostly managed to weather Simon’s coming out. But will his HIV diagnosis be their undoing? By turns intimate, funny, and hopeful, the play explores how people can change and how love can evolve. More info here

Liz Collins Through November: Dynamic Expansion + Ongoing through February 28th:  Wayfinding Multi-year QAM Mentor Liz Collins is featured in a solo exhibition at Ligne Roset's flagship space in New York, entitled Dynamic Expansion.  The show consists of a surrealist lounge where the art and furniture are literally cut from the same cloth of vibrating geometric patterns. Through November, more here and here.  Collins' work can also be seen in dialogue with the Sidney R. Knafel Map Collection in the exhibition Wayfinding at Phillips Academy's Addison Gallery (through Feb. 28, more here).

GOODW.Y.N Through Dec. 11th, 13th: Pandemic Art Lessons + Bound up Together 2013-2014 QAM Fellow GOODW.Y.N is featured in two group exhibitions this month: first, as part of Pandemic Art Lessons: An Online Initiative of the Women's Art Institute, on view through December 11th. More here. Second, the artist will show work in Bound up Together: On the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment, an exhibition at Smack Mellon, on view through December 13th. More here

Rodrigo Moreira Through Dec. 18th: TIAB - Mother Tongue  2016-2017 QAM Fellow Rodrigo Moreira is showing work in The Immigrant Artist Biennial's virtual group exhibition, Here, Together!, as part of the group of works called Mother Tongue. Moreira's contribution is Vocabulary / Intensive Course / Portuguese – English / Speaking / Module I / Illustrated Version, a 2017 video piece. More on the Biennial here, and check out Mother Tongue here

Carrie Moyer / Catherine Opie Through June, 2021: Never Done Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY The Tang Teaching Museum's exhibition, Never Done: 100 Years of Women in Politics and Beyond, takes the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment as a moment for reflection and exploration of the issues and challenges women in the U.S. have faced, and continue to face, in politics and society. Featured artists in the group exhibition include 2014-2015 QAM Mentor Carrie Moyer and 2017 QA Prize Winner Catherine Opie. More here

Silas Howard Now Streaming on Netflix: Grand Army 2015-2016 QAM Mentor Silas Howard has directed two episodes of the new Netflix series, Grand Army. The show follows five students at the largest public high school in Brooklyn, who take on a chaotic world as they fight to succeed, survive, break free and seize the future. Howard directed episodes 7 and 8 of the 9-episode season. Check it out here

Kimberly Reed Now Streaming on HBO: Equal Multi-year QAM Mentor Kimberly Reed has directed an episode of the new HBO Max series Equal. The show honors the rebels of yesteryear with never-before-seen archival footage along with stylistic depictions that bring to life the gripping and true backstories of these leaders and unsung heroes. Reed's episode, the second, chronicles the 20th century trans experience, bookended by the 1966 Compton Cafeteria riots in San Francisco. More here