You Should Take a Personal Day, 18x18 inches oil on gallery wrapped stretched canvas by Kenney Mencher

You Should Take a Personal Day,
18x18 inches oil on gallery wrapped stretched canvas
by Kenney Mencher $700

I'm trying to take my subject matter a step beyond what I've been doing in terms of my gay art that features bears.  In this case I was thinking of two mature men, possibly married, in a relationship to one another.  I'm attempting to tell more of a story by including multiple figures in a more complex composition.  I've been working with the idea of juxtaposing a clothed figure against a nude figure and trying to tell more of a story and excite the viewers' imaginations.  This time it's about two bears, one in a business suit.  I wanted to go beyond the single nude or semi nude figure which at times can be pretty predictable as a format in homoerotic art.

I think a lot of gay art focuses on the young pretty males, often portraying these figures just in terms of almost raw sexuality but in this case I'm hoping to make a painting that's a bit more original in terms of content.  First, although this painting is erotic and or homoerotic, I wanted to show mature men, not necessarily muscle bears, but real bears, in a more romantic and true to life relationship to one another.

In "You Should Take a Personal Day," I'm hoping that the composition helps to tell the story.  The almost split down the middle of the canvas that has the larger figure coming towards the viewer, while the other naked figure's torso is turned towards the advancing figure and framed in a doorway which also serves to create a deeper space and pulls the viewer into the picture.  I had considered having the characters' eyes looking towards one another but at the last minute I thought it might break the "third wall '' if both the characters seemed to be looking at the picture's audience.  I thought it might make a stronger relationship between the viewer and the painting's story.  I even imagined they were a third in a ménage a trois.

The paint on this is also super thick as a way to create more visual and physical presence to the painting.  The technique of applying thick layers of paint is called an "impasto" (sort of the Italian for paste.)  I try to vary the textures to compliment or amplify the surfaces and planes I'm painting.  So the face and arms on this painting were painted more with thick bristle brushes and the strokes are meant to be gestural or calligraphic.  The background and the shirt are literally troweled on in areas. It took forever for this painting to dry because the paint is so thick.

 

"Bigger on the Inside," Dir. Angelo Madsen Minax, 2022 (Premiering at NYFF on Oct. 8th)

QUEER|ART EVENTS: OCTOBER 2022

Well, it's a wild start to the fall season of queer art, with performances, films and other events creeping out of every New York City nook: A work in progress screening of Seyi Adebanjo's Afromystic for BAAD!'s BlakTinX (Oct. 6th) A benefit exhibition for Performance Space at David Zwirner with Nicole Eisenman (through Oct. 8th) Bigger on the Inside by Angelo Madsen Minax (NYFF Oct. 8th/9th, NewFest Oct. 20th) Tamara Santibañez presents Bloodsisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism for Queer|Art|Film (Oct. 10th) Gustavo Vinagre presents his film Unlearning to Sleep for Adam Baran's Narrow Rooms series (Oct 15th) A monologue from Mashuq Mushtaq Deen for Breaking the Binary (Oct. 16th) David Thomson performs Vessel at The Chocolate Factory (Oct. 26th-29th) Arthur Aviles presents Homage! a new dance concert for BAAD!'s BlakTinX (Oct. 27th/28th) Trajal Harrell's Maggie the Cat at NYU Skirball (Oct. 27th-29th) And a slew of other things to do online or experience elsewhere: Touchstones Rochdale presents Liz Collins' Mischief (Through Jan. 8th) Talvin Wilks directs Ifa Bayeza's The Till Trilogy at Mosaic in D.C. (Through Nov. 20th) Lola Flash in conversation with Sadie Barnette at Getty Center/online (Oct. 9th) Saeed Jones reading for Litquake in San Francisco (Oct. 16th) Natalia Leite's episodes for The Handmaid's Tale premiere (Oct. 19th/26th) Pamela Sneed presents work from a new hybrid poetry book for Gibney online (Oct. 19th) Yoruba Richen/Johanna Hamilton's documentary on Rosa Parks on Peacock (Oct. 19th) The African Desperate, with a soundtrack by Colin Self, on Mubi (Oct. 21st) Queer for Fear, a doc series with contributions by Tommy Pico/Natalia Leite, on Shudder The Serpent Queen, with episodes directed by Stacie Passon, on Starz Articles by Hugh Ryan and Sarah Schulman  More on these and much more below!  —Evan Scott, Newsletter Editor

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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 October: 198 Black-Owned Businesses to Support -  Updated in 2022! Mostly NYC-based businesses, but plenty for folks in other places too.  And a highlight from upcoming deadlines for artists: Art Omi Residency - Applications for Art Omi's residency programs for writers, artists, and architects are now open. Through a competitive jury process, residents are chosen, invited to attend at no cost to themselves, except travel. Abundant, catered meals and comfortable, beautiful lodgings are provided in a scenic location in Columbia County, New York. Art Omi is two hours north of New York City by train. Deadline: October 15th 2023 Bronx Museum AIM Fellowship -  Since 1980, the Bronx Museum has supported New York’s artist community through the AIM Fellowship, the museum’s flagship artist development program offering career management resources to guide emerging artists through the opaque professional practices of the art world. Deadline: October 17th For more, check out our Community Resources, including COVID-19 Artist Resources.

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

Liz Collins Oct. 1st - Jan. 8th: Mischief Exhibition (U.K.): Touchstones Rochdale presents Mischief, a solo exhibition featuring new textile art and selected pieces from the archives of Multi-year QAM Mentor Liz Collins and curated by Julia Bryan-Wilson. Showcasing the breadth of Collins’ work and continuing threads throughout her career to date, the exhibition reveals ties to industrial making methods, traditional and hi-tech, with links to Rochdale’s own historic textile industry. Mischief will give space to the lives and experiences of queer people in Rochdale and other former mill towns in the North of England, via an accompanying exhibition, Queer People, Places and Things. The show will travel to RISD in 2025 and be accompanied by a catalogue. More on the exhibition and public programs here.

Talvin Wilks Oct. 4th - Nov. 20th: The Till Trilogy Performance (Washington D.C.): 2015-2016 QAM Mentor Talvin Wilks has directed The Till Trilogy at the Mosaic Theater. Written by noted playwright Ifa Bayeza, the shows reflect on the life, death, and legacy of Emmett Till, whose murder in 1955 remains one of the most pivotal moments in American history. The three plays — The Ballad of Emmett Till, Benevolence, and the world premiere That Summer in Sumner — will star 10 actors performing in rotating repertory for the first time. Filled with music, poetry, and imagination, this rare theatrical event will honor the ongoing fight for racial justice in our country and offer audiences of all ages an opportunity for collective reckoning, reflection, and response. More here.

Seyi Adebanjo / Arthur Aviles Oct. 6th, 7pm ET: Seyi Adebanjo's Afromystic Oct. 27th/28th, 8pm ET: Arthur Aviles' Homage! Events (NYC): BAAD! presents the 22nd BlakTinX Performance Festival, featuring a new dance concert from Multi-year QAM Mentor Arthur Aviles, an homage to influential choreographers livens the stage with a modern interpretation reflective rich queer and intersectional history, and a work-in-progress screening of 2013-2014 QAM Fellow Seyi Adebanjo's Afromystic, a lyrical documentary which follows four LGBTQ Yorùbá practitioners across the waters of Nigeria, Brazil, and the US. A Q&A will follow the film. More here.

Nicole Eisenman Through Oct. 8th: A Maze Zanine, Amaze Zaning, A Mezzaning, Meza-9 Exhibition (NYC): A Maze Zanine, Amaze Zaning, A Mezzaning, Meza-9 is an online exhibition via David Zwirner Gallery featuring works donated by fifty artists to benefit Performance Space New York, for which Multi-year QAM Mentor Pati Hertling serves as Deputy Director. It is available in tandem with a physical exhibition at the gallery’s 519 West 19th Street location and is organized by Ei Arakawa, Kerstin Brätsch, 2011-2012 QAM Mentor Nicole Eisenman, and Laura Owens. More here.

Angelo Madsen Minax Oct. 8th/9th/20th: Short film at NYFF and NewFest Screening (NYC): Current QAM Mentor Angelo Madsen Minax's new short film Bigger on the Inside will premiere at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center. Outer and inner space collapse in the cosmic essay film, which diffracts feelings, memories, and longings during a blurry sojourn in a remote cabin in the woods. Q&A's with the filmmaker will follow both screenings. Oct. 8th and 9th, more here. The film will screen again at the Nitehawk Theater as part of NewFest: New York's International LGBT Film Festival. Oct. 20th, more here.

Lola Flash Oct. 9th, 4pm PT: In conversation at Getty Center Ongoing, through Dec. 10th: A Picture Gallery of the Soul Ongoing, through Feb 12th: Images on which to build In-person/online Event & Exhibitions (LA / MN / OH): Current QAM Mentor Lola Flash will appear in conversation with Sadie Barnette at the Getty Center. Flash will talk with multimedia artist Barnette about their unique approaches to history, our current moment, and Afrofuturism. More here. Flash is also showing work in two exhibitions: In Minneapolis, at the Katherine E. Nash gallery, A Picture Gallery of the Soul. More here. At the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Images on which to build, 1970s-1990s. More here.

QUEER | ART | FILM Oct. 10th, 8pm ET: Tamara Santibañez Presents Blood Sisters:  Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism Event (NYC): Queer|Art|Film returns this Fall to the IFC Center with a season curated by multidisciplinary artists and former QAM Fellows Heather Lynn Johnson and Sarah Zapata.  This season, as we navigate a rollback of our right to bodily autonomy and rising fascist attacks on our community, our curators seek to find solace and solidarity in unexpected places, and offer not an escape but perhaps a re-lensing of the wavering world around us through films hand-picked by an impressive cohort of queer artists.  This month, interdisciplinary artist Tamara Santibañez presents Bloodsisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism, a dive into a community of Leatherdykes in San Francisco in the mid-90s. Michelle Handelman's doc presents a collage of kink and BDSM practices, leaning into play not often shown, even in queer films. From needle play to tops directly addressing the audience as their submissives, the film is unflinching. Through collected interviews, an image of a community grappling with questions of forbidden desires, gender & sexual fluidity, and the politicization of their very existence begins to emerge. Between the colorful overlays and the 90s fashion (mullets everywhere!), the film is a kind of a time capsule, documenting a moment in queer history in all its messy, complicated, campy glory. More here.

Adam Baran Oct. 15th, 7pm ET: Narrow Rooms film series / Gustavo Vinagre's Unlearning to Sleep Screening (NYC): Narrow Rooms, organized by filmmaker, writer, and Queer|Art|Film resident curator Adam Baran, continues in October! For the program, Baran picks his favorite flicks for adventurous audiences at Anthology Film Archives, which has celebrated edgy, groundbreaking gay cinema for over 50 years. This month: Gustavo Vinagre's Unlearning to Sleep / Desaprender a Dormir (2021). In a small apartment in São Paolo, Flávio spends his days editing gay porn while his husband, José, tries to calculate when Earth will colonize Mars. Together, they’re a couple in crisis. Flávio’s lost his sex drive, because when you look at men fucking all day for work you don’t want to do it when the day is done. Frustrated and horny, José pursues a Grindr hookup with a green-haired jock who may be from outer space. As their relationship fractures, realities start to blur and Flávio starts hallucinating himself and José into the porn he’s editing. Throw in a dildo that displays scenes from some of cinema’s greatest classics, a YouTube hypnotist, and a lot of big butts and dongs, and you have a recipe for a wild gay night out at the movies! Vinagre to introduce the film and participate in a Q&A after the screening! More here.

Mashuq Mushtaq Deen Oct. 16th, 7pm ET: Monologue for Breaking the Binary Performance (NYC): In partnership with Broadway Licensing, Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival will present an evening of fifteen new monologues from TNB2S+ writers commissioned by BTB. Following the presentation, Broadway Licensing will publish and license the monologues with profit proceeds being donated back to BTB. Included in the presentation is a new work by Multi-year QAM Mentor Mashuq Mushtaq Deen. More here.

Saeed Jones Oct. 16th, 7:30pm PT: Litquake reading Event (SF): Litquake returns to San Francisco’s gothic and gorgeous Grace Cathedral for a special evening of exalted verse, celebrating the sacred and profane, domestic and divine, with poetry in the pews from Current QAM Mentor Saeed Jones , Amanda Moore, Shelley Wong, A.A. Vincent, and a special guest poet from Youth Speaks. Curated and hosted by D.A. Powell and Preeti Vangani. More here.

Natalie Leite Oct. 19th/26th: The Handmaid's Tale  Streaming: 2013-2014 QAM Fellow Natalia Leite has directed two episodes of the fifth season of The Handmaid's Tale. Episodes 7 and 8 of the show, starring Elisabeth Moss and based on the novel by Margaret Atwood, will premiere on Hulu on October 19th and 26th. More here.

Pamela Sneed Oct. 19th, 6pm ET: Gibney Dance lecture Online Event: As part of Gibney Dance's Deeper Lecture series, curated by Asantewaa Grant Honoree Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Multi-year QAM Mentor Pamela Sneed presents and discusses work from a new hybrid poetry book, 9:29, which reflects on the Floyd uprisings, her father’s death, the pandemic, and lots of film reviews. More here.

Yoruba Richen October 19th: The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks Streaming: The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, a documentary from directors Johanna Hamilton and Multi-year QAM Mentor Yoruba Richen, will stream for Peacock DocFest. The film, which is based on the bestselling biography by Jeanne Theoharis and executive produced by award-winning journalist Soledad O'Brien, expands the record on Rosa Parks' overlooked accomplishments and the importance of her drive and fight to overcome racial injustices and rampant inequalities.  More here.

Colin Self October 21st: The African Desperate Streaming: The African Desperate, directed by Martine Syms and with a soundtrack by 2013-2014 QAM Fellow Colin Self, will premiere on Mubi. This coming-of-age comedy tracks one very long day for Palace Bryant, a newly minted MFA grad whose final twenty four hours in art school become a real trip. More here.