QUEER|ART|PRIDE is an annual summer showcase of new and recently completed work by Alumni of Queer|Art|Mentorship.

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Queer|Art partnered with Abrons Arts Center in New York City to present the third annual edition of Queer|Art|Pride. More than 40 artists will participate in a 10-day extravaganza of public and community programs that include screenings, readings, performances, artist workshops, studio residencies, and more.

The centerpiece of Queer|Art|Pride 2019 was the first-ever Queer|Art|Pride Book & Print Fair, taking place throughout the day on Saturday, June 8th, with work available for sale by 30+ participating artists, including Justin Vivian Bond, Dynasty Handbag, Pamela Sneed, Angela Dufresne, Carlos Motta, Geoff Chadsey, Liz Collins, Morgan Bassichis, and Camilo Godoy. Other featured artists participating in Queer|Art|Pride this year included painter Marco DaSilva, whose solo exhibition and newly commissioned mural project Em Casa: Brazilian Cutlery kicked things off on Monday, June 3rd, and Rodrigo Bellott, who shared a special preview screening of Blood-Red Ox, a new queer horror film, on June 5th. Additional events specifically for LGBTQ+ artists ran throughout, including a community town hall and a full day of workshops accessible to all interested applicants for the 2019-2020 Queer|Art|Mentorship cycle.

All events for 2019 were held at Abrons Arts Center in the Lower East Side (466 Grand at Pitt Street). Visit their website to see all the arts & cultural work that they do: https://www.abronsartscenter.org/

Thank you, Abrons!

Em Casa: Brazilian Cutlery

Past event

Monday, June 3rd at 8:30pm
Opening Reception
Solo exhibition by Marco DaSilva (on view through June 13)
FREE, Open to the Public

Friends, family, peers, and lovers all came together to celebrate Marco DaSilva and the unveiling of his mural which was on view at Abrons Arts Center for our Queer|Art|Pride events. The Queer|Art community and resident artists of Abrons alike were so impressed by the scale, imagery, and sheer joy shared through Em Casa: Brazilian Cutlery. The opening reception was a wholesome moment of LGBTQ+ communities of color coming together with the help of DJ Sandy bringing the beats! Thank you to Jam Jar for kindly donating their wines for the reception.

Marco DaSilva’s Em Casa: Brazilian Cutlery is an exploration of Brazilian spirituality and cultural identity through color palettes, textures, and shapes inspired by DaSilva’s pilgrimage to Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 2018. As a gringo-Brasilero from New York, DaSilva’s exhibition, which includes a new mural commission that will serve as the backdrop for Queer|Art|Pride, captures his experience living in the tropical city for the first time on his own. DaSilva’s paintings often render details of his everyday experiences into bold, colorful symbols that take on mythological proportions. The paintings in Em Casa: Brazilian Cutlery draw on a spiritual reading he received during his visit to Rio de Janeiro and reference places and objects with which he interacted and found significance.

Marco DaSilva is a native New Yorker whose symbol-based paintings explore hybridity through the intersections of his Brazilian-American, queer identity and manic experience. His graphic style of painting uses bright neon colors to evoke a tropical mood of vice and opulence. He creates his own mythology in the process, providing a richly saturated landscape of his own world to the viewer. He has exhibited work at Heath Gallery, The LGBT Community Center, and a solo exhibition at The Bureau of General Services-Queer Division. Most recently, his work was seen in the group show BLOOM SERVICE at Galeria del Barrio and his paintings will be featured on the upcoming second season of “The Last OG.” He was a NYFA Artist as Entrepreneur Fellow and a Visual Art Fellow for Queer|Art|Mentorship’s 2017-2018 cycle with mentor Liz Collins.

Blood-Red Ox

Past event

Wednesday, June 5 at 7pm
work-in-progress screening of queer horror film by Rodrigo Bellott
$12 Suggested Donation

Queer|Art|Pride dives into darkness with this special work-in-progress screening of director Rodrigo Bellott’s new queer horror film Blood-Red Ox. In Bellott’s second feature film, Amir, a Lebanese-American journalist and his boyfriend Amat are on assignment in Bolivia to report on imminent environmental threats to the rainforest, but their visit quickly takes a bizarre turn as Amat begins having visions of a nightmarish creature that is half-man, half-ox. Amir must save his boyfriend before these visions consume him, but he will quickly realize nothing and nobody is to be trusted—not even himself.

Following the screening, Rodrigo Bellott will be joined on stage by Erik Piepenburg, founder of Don's Place, a club for LGBTQ+ fans of horror movies. Piepenburg writes regularly about horror films for The New York Times, where he worked for almost 15 years and covered directors as diverse as George Romero, John Carpenter, Jordan Peele and Jen and Sylvia Soska.

Rodrigo Bellott is a Bolivian filmmaker, playwright, and producer—and a 2015-2016 Queer|Art|Mentorship alum. His breakout hit Sexual Dependency marked the rebirth of Bolivian cinema as the country’s first official submission for “Best Foreign Language Film” at the 2004 Academy Awards. Bellott’s Who Killed the White Llama? was the most successful box-office hit in Bolivia’s history, leading to Variety magazine naming him one of the Top Ten Latin American talents to watch in 2007. At Queer|Art|Mentorship, Bellott worked with Mentor, filmmaker Silas Howard on the film adaptation of his play Tu Me Manques, which is now in post-production and stars Oscar Martinez and Rossy De Palma. Bellott is currently adapting Tu Me Manques for Broadway and is developing a new project at the New Museum.

 Please note: This is a work-in-progress screening. The film is not yet open for review.

Queer|Art|Pride: Book & Print Fair

Past event

Saturday, June 8th at 1pm-6pm
FREE, Open to the Public

The centerpiece of Queer|Art|Pride 2019 is the first-ever Queer|Art|Pride Book & Print Fair, took place throughout the day on Saturday, June 8th, with work available for sale by 30+ participating LGBTQ+ artists from the Queer|Art|Mentorship program. Curated in the spirit of abundance, the Queer|Art|Pride Book & Print Fair had hundreds of works for perusal and purchase, with an eclectic range of artist books, novels, zines, poetry chapbooks, drawings, photographs, watercolors, collages, prints, and other limited edition artworks spilling out from Abrons’ main gallery and into the outdoor amphitheater. Many artists arrived to discuss their works, sell their works, and autograph them too, while live performances and readings hosted by P&O Assistant, KT Pe Benito, that allowed our Queer|Art community to share their work out loud. We had amazing alternating DJ sets by Zenobia, known for her exclusive focus on music by femmes of color, and Precolumbian, whose Philadelphia-based parties center trans people of color. Food and drinks were generously provided by Dr. Brew Kombucha, Gem & Bolt, and Cantina Royal that made the festivities a true block-party!

Participating artists included Seyi Adebanjo, Eames Armstrong, Morgan Bassichis, Justin Vivian Bond, Ella Boureau, Nancy Brooks Brody, Jibz Cameron (AKA Dynasty Handbag), Anna Campbell, Candystore, Geoff Chadsey, Sarah Creagen, Liz Collins, Marco DaSilva, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, Angela Dufresne, Avram Finkelstein, Federica Gianni, Camilo Godoy, Neil Goldberg, Nicole Goodwin, Cristóbal Guerra, Heather Lynn Johnson, Jarrett Key, Mylo Mendez, Rodrigo Moreira, Carlos Motta, Russell Perkins, Tommy Pico, Christina Quintana, Hugh Ryan, Pamela Sneed, Natalie Tsui, Zoe Schlacter, Ripley Soprano, and Brendan Williams-Child.  

Queer|Art|Pride: Meet The Mentors

Past event

Sunday, June 9th at 2pm
Q&A Information Session

Queer|Art provided an opportunity for Queer|Art|Mentorship applicants to meet the new Queer|Art Mentors for the 2019-2020 program cycle. Prospective applicants RSVP’d for the Q&A Session with Queer|Art Staff, Mentors, and Fellows, at Abrons Arts Center on Sunday, June 9th at 2pm.

The Mentors selected for the 2019-2020 program cycle represent a diverse and vibrant group of esteemed artists and curators whose work has made a tremendous impact across multiple sectors of the art world. The 2019–2020 Mentors are: Rodrigo Bellott (Film), Hao Wu (Film), Kate Bornstein (Literature), Gayatri Gopinath (Literature), Charles Rice-González (Literature), Maria Bauman-Morales (Performance),  Mashuq Mushtaq Deen (Performance), Lola Flash (Visual Art), Yve Laris Cohen (Visual Art), and Thomas Lax (Curatorial Practice).

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

PRIDE ARCHIVE