This is our second year organizing Queer|Art|Pride, which is presented as part of Pride@Wythe, an annual takeover of the Wythe Hotel’s multiple event spaces during Pride Week, with parties and performances and screenings and other good stuff, organized in partnership with various LGBTQ orgs and promoters. Queer|Art will again be taking over the Wythe’s beautiful downstairs jewel box cinema/theater, which seats 70 people and has a private bar. Additional Pride programming in the form of a pop-up installation at Macy's–Herald Square, 9th Floor will be on view June 19-30.

Our focus for Queer|Art|Pride is to celebrate recently completed work by graduates of the Mentorship program (now entering its eighth year) and to create a space for taking risks among friends. Over the course of two nights, Queer|Art will present three programs - QA|Pride: Live (hosted by Moe Angelos of The Five Lesbian Brothers) on June 21st; QA|Pride: Cinema (featuring a work-in-progress viewing of a new film by Rodrigo Bellott) on June 22nd; and the QA|Pride: Alumni Art Jam (hosted by The Illustrious Blacks) also on June 22nd. 

Queer|Art|Pride will showcase new and recent work by Queer|Art alumni: Camilo Godoy, Melissa Li, Tommy Pico, Nicole Goodwin, Justin Sayre, Justine Williams, Sasha Wortzel, Morgan Bassichis, Samantha Nye, Guadalupe Rosales, Eva Peskin, Kerry Downey, and Michael de Angelis (with ANIMALS), and their collaborators.

5% of ticket sales for all events during Pride at Wythe will be donated to Visual AIDS, a New York-based non-profit that utilizes art to fight AIDS.

2018 PRIDE SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Thursday, June 21st at 8pm
Queer|Art|Pride: Live (hosted by Moe Angelos)

Taking the form of an evening salon, this live event, hosted by legendary experimental theater artist and Queer|Art Mentor Moe Angelos (The Five Lesbian Brothers, The Builders Association), will feature a diverse program of short readings and performances of recently completed work and upcoming premieres by alumni of Queer|Art|Mentorship. The program includes a performance of “sex dances” through the ages by Camilo Godoy, excerpts from a new musical by Melissa Li (with lyrics by poet Kit Yan), poetry readings by Tommy Pico and Nicole Goodwin, a new short play by notorious wit Justin Sayre, and a queer bat mitzvah organized by Justine Williams.

Friday, June 22nd at 7:30pm
Queer|Art|Pride: Cinema Tu Me Manques
(Dir. Rodrigo Bellott; work-in-progress screening)

This program features a special work-in-progress screening of director Rodrigo Bellot’s new feature film Tu Me Manques starring Oscar Martinez and Rossy de Palma. Tu Me Manques is the culmination of a project begun as part of Bellot’s fellowship in Queer|Art|Mentorship. Bellot will be joined by production designer and Queer|Art Mentor Avram Finkelstein (Silence = Death Collective) for a post-screening conversation, with other special guests to be announced soon.

Synopsis: In Bolivia, Jorge meets his son’s ex-boyfriend Sebastian over an accidental skype chat during which Jorge reveals that his son Gabriel has committed suicide. This encounter—full of guilt, regret, and anger—triggers an unexpected turn as Jorge decides to go to New York to find out what happened to Gabriel, meet Sebastian and their friends, and find answers to the questions he desperately seeks. Jorge arrives full of prejudice and fear, but encounters a community of people full of hope and strength despite their history of personal and collective oppression. The stories of Jorge, Sebastian, and Gabriel, each in a different time, gradually intertwine and finally come together in a transcendent moment of shared recognition that has surprising resonance throughout their home country.  

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

Friday, June 22nd at 11pm-1am
Queer|Art|Pride: Alumni Art Jam
(hosted by The Illustrious Blacks)

This special late-night program and mixer will be a raucous anything-goes throwdown of live music, performance art, music video screenings, slideshows, and anything and everything in between. Acclaimed dance/funk/performance art power-duo The Illustrious Blacks preside over the night’s festivities, which will include screenings of Sasha Wortzel’s tribute to Fire Island (with music and performance by Morgan Bassichis) and Samantha Nye’s latest video “Daddy” starring her mother dancing with a dominating phalanx of leather-butch women her same age; a livestream slideshow by Guadalupe Rosales of the 90s Latino Party scene in Southern California; a humorous lecture-demonstration on the subject of performance debris by Eva Peskin; a short experimental film about night scares and desire by Kerry Downey; and a guided sleep meditation by performance art group ANIMALS (featuring Michael de Angelis, et al.), sending everyone off into the night, chilled out and feeling themselves.

June 19-30 @ Macy’s
We Dream in Color

"We Dream In Color" is a vibrant installation for Pride conceived by two alumni of our Queer|Art|Mentorship program, Nicole Goodwin and Samantha Nye, and features work by several of their collaborators and friends. Additional performances, conversations, and other activities with Queer|Art artists will animate the room throughout June. Exhibition located at 151 W. 34th St. in Herald Square, 9th Floor.

The left and right walls have been curated by Goodwin with QAM Alum Zachary Frater and Renee Royale, and feature artworks by Christian Cisneros, Kendrick Daye, Ricardo Osmond Francis, Gary J. Higgins II, Felli Maynard, Flash O’Boy feat. Raisin (mural), Bryant Small, and Moréna Wells. The central wall features an installation by Nye.

Viewers are invited to sit, relax, sparkle, and reflect: PRIDE IS A SPECTRUM INFLUENCED BY CIRCUMSTANCE.

2018 GALLERY

All photos by Eric McNatt