5® GUM TEAMS UP WITH YUNGBLUD AND GREG YUNA TO CREATE THE “MASTERPIECES” CAMPAIGN FEATURING LUXURY JEWELRY CONTAINING CHEWED GUM
Fans can own the thrill by bidding-to-win one of 5® gum’s fifteen limited-edition luxury necklaces that feature Yungblud’s chewed 5 gum
Photo courtesies to Jordan Strauss Photography
NEWARK, NJ [October 17, 2022] – Today, one of Mars’ most exhilarating and adventurous brands, 5® gum, announced its “Masterpieces” campaign in collaboration with musician and Gen Z icon, Yungblud, and prominent New York City luxury jeweler and artist, Greg Yuna. The campaign brings to life across multiple touch points the brand’s purpose: to encourage people to embrace the thrill of taking a chance, pushing the limits of their craft, and doing what makes them feel alive.
At the center of the new campaign is the “Masterpieces” collection, a set of 15 custom luxury necklaces designed and crafted by Yuna using pieces of Cobalt Peppermint 5 gum that were chewed by Yungblud as part of his pre-concert ritual during his 5 gum-sponsored U.S. album release tour last month. Leaning into the brand’s namesake of stimulating all five senses, Yungblud chewed a piece of 5 gum before hitting the stage at each show throughout his tour, capturing the anticipation and exhilaration felt moments before doing something life-changing.
Photo courtesies to Jordan Strauss Photography
After his electrifying concerts, a total of 15 pieces of the iconic bright blue 5 gum were collected and sent to Yuna to handcraft into 15 collectible necklaces, each representing the thrill felt by both Yungblud and his fans before, during and after each performance, as well as by Yuna when ideating and creating such fascinating pieces of jewelry.
"I love these jewelry pieces that Greg Yuna created. His work is next level and the fact that some of my fans will have the chance to own a little piece of history is amazing,” said Yungblud. “I loved this tour with 5 gum and I couldn’t think of a better way to have celebrated the release of my album than by hitting as many cities in the U.S. as I could and seeing as many of my fans as possible. Playing these new songs for the first time in these beautiful record stores was an experience I’ll never forget.”
No two necklaces of the 15-piece collection are the same. Each one features a piece of chewed cobalt blue gum in its original shape as the center piece, encased in Lucite. White diamonds and a charm engraved with the 5 gum logo and Yuna’s signature stamp surround the gum pendant, which hangs on a 14K white gold chain. Each of the necklaces will be encased in a custom-designed 5 gum jewelry box, featuring an exterior inscription noting the edition number of that specific “Masterpiece” within the larger collection. The jewelry will also come with a certificate of authentication and a pack of the limited-edition Cobalt Peppermint 5 gum featuring Yungblud’s name and image.
Photo courtesies to Jordan Strauss Photography
“Creating slightly shocking luxury jewelry pieces out of an everyday item such as gum is something that has never been done before in the industry, so I loved stepping into the unknown and challenging myself to create pieces that were equally as exhilarating as Yungblud and 5 gum,” said Greg Yuna. “Experiences that heighten your sense is the new luxury, and I’m incredibly proud of both this partnership with 5 gum and the final jewelry pieces. As fans will see, they truly embody self-expression, passion and boldness, which is what I’m all about.”
“As a brand that strives to be the most adventurous and distinct brand for life's most exhilarating moments, 5 gum’s partnership with two authentically bold, artistic geniuses, like Yungblud and Greg Yuna, was a natural fit and a great honor,” said Justin Hollyn-Taub, Senior Marketing Director at Mars Wrigley. “The 15 pieces of custom jewelry, featuring our very own 5 Cobalt gum, were created in such a way that they truly live up to the name of this campaign and collection – Masterpieces. We simply cannot wait for fans to get the unique chance to take home a piece of the thrill that was experienced throughout Yungblud’s tour and the masterful creation of the jewelry.”
Yungblud & Weslo (Wesley Smoot) SOHO House 2022
Now through October 26, fans worldwide can bid on 5 gum’s Masterpieces collection on eBay at www.ebay.com/e/ad/5GumMasterpieces. Bidding starts at $5 and all proceeds from the sale of each Masterpiece will benefit the National Independent Venue Foundation (NIVF) to further its mission to preserve and nurture the ecosystem of independent venues, promoters, festivals, and cultural hubs of local communities across the United States.
To see a behind-the-scenes look at the thrill felt on stage and in the studio with Yungblud and Greg Yuna, check out this video and follow 5 gum on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Facebook.
TAMMIE BROWN’S HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR PREMIERES OCTOBER 21ST ON OUTTV
Tammie Brown and Kelly Mantle are thrilled to return to OUTtv with their brand-new holiday special, Tammie Brown’s Halloween Spooktacular. Premiering October 21 and streaming throughout the trick-and-treat season, the show stars everyone’s favorite comedic drag duo as they fight ghouls, goblins, and crazed fans to keep their Halloween Spooktacular afloat. The hilarious hour of comedy and hijinks includes negligent bodyguards, botched fashion shows, and meet-and-greets gone wrong. Luckily, Kelly Mantle is there to take matters into her own hands… so what could go wrong? Tammie Brown’s Halloween Spooktacular features two new singles by Tammie Brown, “Soothsayer” and “Pumpkin Blaster,” and guest star appearances by Sonique Love, April Carrión, Fena Barbitall, Todd Glass, and the Sugarbaker Twins.
“I love the variety show format,” says Tammie Brown, the drag persona created by Keith Glen Schubert who is best known for her stand-out appearances on RuPaul's Drag Race and RuPaul's Drag Race All-Stars. She has released four music albums including the popular hit singles, “Port-A-Potty Prostitute” and “Schubert,” and regularly performs all over the world. “Tammie Brown’s Halloween Spooktacular will introduce new music, hilarious sketches, and a myriad of dynamic guests. It will be a rip-roaring event,” she promises.
Tammie Brown’s Halloween Spooktacular also sees the return of Kelly Mantle’s zany alter-ego, Sheila. “People love Sheila because she has no filter, no censor and no shame,” Mantle explains. “She says what we’re all thinking. She’s bold and blunt, but it goes down smooth like a Pumpkin latte mixed with Southern Comfort.”
Kelly Mantle made Oscar history by being the first openly non-binary person to be approved and considered by The Academy for both Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress for their role in the feature film, Confessions of A Womanizer. Mantle is a graduate of Second City in Chicago and has appeared on television in RuPaul's Drag Race, Lucifer, Modern Family and Mike & Molly, among others. Their uncle is the late great Mickey Mantle.
Tammie Brown’s Halloween Spooktacular is directed by John Mark, who also created Tammie Brown and Kelly Mantle’s half-hour comedy series, The Browns, available on OUTtv.
Tammie Brown’s Halloween Spooktacular will be available to stream OUTtv.com and on AppleTV+ via the OUTtv Channel on October 21.
Follow Tammie Brown on IG @planettammie
Follow Kelly Mantle on IG @kellymantle, Twitter @thekellymantle, and FB @ Kelly Mantle
Follow John Mark on IG @johnmarkcreative
C3 PRESENTS IN COLLABORATION WITH THE LADY BIRD JOHNSON WILDFLOWER CENTER ANNOUNCE THE AUSTIN DEBUT OF BRUCE MUNRO’S FIELD OF LIGHT IMMERSIVE LIGHT INSTALLATION
“Mr. Munro… has become the Christo and Jeanne-Claude of fiber-optic light environments.”
—The New York Times
AUSTIN, TX - Austin’s own C3 Presents, in collaboration with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin, is proud to announce that highly acclaimed British artist Bruce Munro’s Field of Light will debut on September 9, 2022, at the Wildflower Center.
Illuminating 16 acres in the Arboretum at the Wildflower Center, Field of Light is a stunning display of 28,000 stemmed spheres that are subtly lit by solar powered fiber-optics. Field of Light beautifully showcases the intersection of art, technology, and nature and its purpose is to inspire a sense of shared existence, and of being part of life’s essential pattern. The installation unites with the outdoors, celebrating the natural topography of the landscape and creating an immersive and emotional experience for guests.
“Austin is such a unique destination that embodies many of the core values of this installation. My hope is that the Field of Light installation will inspire visitors to contemplate a kinder and more connected world,” said Bruce Munro. “The Wildflower Center is the ideal venue for this exhibition simply because it brings people, art and nature together.”
“We’re thrilled to host Munro’s Field of Light in collaboration with C3 Presents and share this world-renowned exhibition with our community,” said Lee Clippard, executive director of the Wildflower Center. “The shifts of color and light will be a unique and provocative way to celebrate our Central Texas landscape.”
Bruce Munro is best known for large-scale light-based artworks inspired by his continuous study of light and his curiosity about shared human experiences. With a fine arts degree, early career training in the lighting design industry and an inventive urge for reuse, Munro creates art that captures his responses to literature, music, science and the world around him. His work has been commissioned by and displayed in special exhibitions in galleries, parks, grand estates, cathedrals, botanical gardens and museums around the globe.
The New York Times says of Munro’s Field of Light in Paso Robles: “There is nothing quite like the mind-bending spectacle now on display at dusk in the hills of Paso Robles. … That is the witching hour when thousands of solar-powered glass orbs on stems, created by the artist Bruce Munro, enfold visitors in an earthbound aurora borealis of shifting hues.”
Tickets will be on sale in July. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Wildflower Center. Guests can enjoy the exhibit from September through December 2022. Click here to learn more, or get social media updates at @fieldoflightaustin on Instagram and Facebook.
Ada Vox Sings Out Loud and Proud This National Coming Out Day with Powerful New Anthem, “Let My Love Shine”
This National Coming Out Day, drag queen Ada Vox, best known for competing on American Idol and winning runner-up on the first season of Paramount Plus’ Queen of The Universe, will release her new song, “Let My Love Shine.” The beautiful song about finding strength and resilience through life’s toughest challenges offers a combination of electronic and dance music, with small gospel influences in the bridge. “I’m known more for dramatic, heart-wrenching diva ballads, but this time around, I wanted to be able to spread joy and happiness,” she explains. “By the end of the song, every single listener should feel compelled to toss their fears aside and live their lives in a way that leads with positivity and light.” Ada Vox’s “Let My Love Shine” is available on Spotify, Apple Music, and all major platforms on October 11.
“I have experienced hiding behind the facade of a fake smile while feeling miserable inside,” admits Ada Vox. “I’ve learned we cannot let our feelings control us. We need to consciously find joy and absorb it and share it with others. In the end, we’re all mere specks of dust in this universe. We may as well float around like happy specks, making as many other little specks happy along the way.”
The lyrics for “Let My Love Shine” were written by Negin Djafari (who has written previously for Miley Cyrus and Drake) and Helienne Lindvall. The song was produced by Daniel Robles.
“I met Daniel at RuPaul’s DragCon,” Vox continues. “He proposed the idea of a collaboration and his energy inspired me. I just knew everything would fall into place beautifully; so as soon as it was possible, we made it happen.”
The world first met Ada Vox when she auditioned for American Idol in 2013. At the time, she was known as Adam Sanders. In one of his Season 12 performances, Adam got a standing ovation from three of the four judges with his rendition of Etta James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind.” However, he was eliminated after Hollywood week. It came as a surprise for all when on the March 25 episode of American Idol, Adam returned as Ada Vox, wowing judges Lionel Richie, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan with her rendition of “House of the Rising Sun”. She was immediately given her golden ticket to Hollywood.
While the exposure from the show won Adam Sanders AKA Ada Vox plenty of new fans and many exciting opportunities to perform, he also began getting death threats on social media. People attacked his weight and his sexuality. It crushed his soul and he admits he even contemplated taking his own life.
Luckily, with the help of fans from the LGBTQ community and beyond, Ada found her strength. “Let My Love Shine” reflects her long-held motto, "I do what I love for the people that love what I do."
“There is so much more to life than worrying about how we can please the naysayers,” Ada Vox says today. “There are people out there who love us for exactly who we are. The only way to find them is to be our true selves. Light attracts light, so let your love shine through in every little thing you do!”
Follow on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram @adavox.
DreamHack Atlanta to Present the Ultimate Weekend Gaming Experience with First In-Person Georgia Event in Three Years, Nov 18-20, 2022
Esports Tournaments Added to Three-Day Festival Include $100,000 DreamHack Featuring Fortnite Competition and $100,000 Starcraft 2 Masters, Plus Over $35,000 in BYOC Tournaments, and More than $25,000 Across Nine Fighting Games Tournaments
COLOGNE / STOCKHOLM / NEW YORK — DreamHack Atlanta, the three-day, immersive, gaming lifestyle festival, has esports competitions this ultimate weekend experience November 18-20, 2022, at the Georgia World Congress Center. Featuring everything gaming under one roof, the event has now added several esports tournaments which offer everyone the opportunity to compete and win — from amateurs to pros. This includes: a $100,000 Fortnite Competition; a $100,000 Starcraft II Masters; a prize pool of more than $35,000 for Bring-Your-Own-Computer (BYOC) tournaments; and a prize pool of more than $25,000 across nine Fighting Games tournaments. Additional content will be announced soon.
“DreamHack loves Atlanta, and we are thrilled to be back! This pandemic has been so hard for so many — but gaming has always had a special way of bringing communities together both online and in person," said Shahin Zarrabi, VP Strategy & Growth at DreamHack. “We always strive to not only create not only a world where our community comes to life, but also one where everybody can be somebody. This array of esports competitions will offer that opportunity to all, so we can’t wait to once again share our festival with the people of Atlanta.”
DreamHack’s 2022 global tour includes a total of 10 festivals in seven countries. DreamHack’s first event since the pandemic was DreamHack Dallas in June — DreamHack has not been to Atlanta since before the pandemic in November 2019.
Prices start at $31 for a one-day pass, and $85 for a three-day experience. More details are available at dreamhack.com/atlanta/tickets.
ESPORTS COMPETITIONS
DreamHack Featuring Fortnite — $100,000 Prize Pool
The DreamHack Featuring Fortnite competition will run all three days of DreamHack Atlanta, beginning on Friday, Nov. 18 and finishing Sunday, Nov. 20 on-site in the BYOC LAN area. Anyone with a BYOC ticket will have the opportunity to compete and begin their journey to become the next DreamHack Featuring Fortnite Champion.
DreamHack Starcraft 2 Masters — Over $100,000 to be won
Participation can be achieved through two routes: 1) Qualify through the regional competitions and secure yourself a paid trip and seeding into the deep stages of the competition, or 2) Register for the 63 slots available in the early stages of the competition.
Fighting Games — More than $25,000 Prize Pool Up For Grabs
DreamHack Atlanta will feature Fighting Game Championships (FGC) including:
● Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Singles — $10,000 Prize Pool
● Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Doubles — $1000 Prize Pool
● Super Smash Bros. Melee, Singles — $1000 Prize Pool
● Super Smash Bros. Melee, Doubles — $1000 Prize Pool
● Guilty Gear Strive — $5000 Prize Pool
● Tekken 7 — $2,500 Prize Pool
● DNF: Duel — $1,500 Prize Pool
● Street Fighter V — $1,000 Prize Pool
● The King of Fighters XV — $1,000 Prize Pool
BYOC Tournaments — More than $35,000 Prize Pool Available
The LAN is a “Bring-Your-Own-Computer (BYOC) or console area and is the core of a DreamHack festival. Each BYOC ticket guarantees a reserved seat, a port on the LAN, power outlets for gear, and a chair (but feel free to bring your own!). BYOC LAN ticket or a 3-Day Pass is required to enter. The Bring-Your-Own-Computer (BYOC) tournaments encourage participants to grab friends and competefor well-deserved cash prizes, including:
● Rocket League — $10,000 Prize Pool
● Team Fortress 2 — $10,000 Prize Pool
● Teamfight Tactics — $5,000 Prize Pool
● Counter Strike: Global Offensive — $2,500 Prize Pool
● League of Legends — $2,500 Prize Pool
● Starcraft 2 — $2,500 Prize Pool
● Age of Empires IV — $2,500 Prize Pool
● Legends of Runeterra — $1,500 Prize Pool
ESPORTS SUMMIT
In addition, the annual Esport Summit will take place ahead of DreamHack Atlanta, November 17-18, punctuating the thriving esports industry in Georgia and beyond. Esports Summit provides global business leaders and educators a comprehensive view of the entire esports ecosystem, including networking opportunities, presentations from industry leaders, and workshops with some of the largest names in the esports and scholastic esports industry.
Jake Wesley Rogers to Perform at Austin City Limits
Rising superstar Jake Wesley Rogers is set to play ACL both weekends with sets Sunday 10/9 and 10/16 @ 1:15pm on the Miller Lite Stage. Attendees will not want to miss this electrifying, live show.
With the release of new song “Hindsight” for gay rom-com film, BROS this past Friday, major buzz is surrounding up-and-coming queer artist and advocate Jake Wesley Rogers.
Jake released his first major-label single “Middle Of Love” last May, Paper Magazine said “Give Jake Wesley Rogers a stadium” and now he is performing in arenas across the country, opening for Panic! at the Disco.
“Hindsight” along with earlier releases from this year including “Modern Love” and “Lavender Forever” which he performed on Ellen and HBO Max’s Legendary can be found on Jake’s upcoming EP.
"My new song Hindsight is very special to me, especially since it will be the end title track in Billy Eichner’s historic new film, “Bros”—the first gay rom-com made by a major motion picture studio. I wrote it with my go-to collaborator Justin Tranter, as well as the producer, Jason Gill. The song is about looking back at the past and longing to make the future better, by actually living and loving (and dancing) to your fullest potential." – Jake Wesley Rogers
Interview coming soon.
3x GRAMMY Award-Nominated Alphabet Rockers Raise Children's Voices for Change on New Album, The Movement
Oakland, Calif. -- Tuesday, October 4, 2022 -- Alphabet Rockers have captured the attention of families and the music industry with their authentic voices for change since the influential group's first GRAMMY Award nomination in 2018. Alphabet Rockers raises the bar - and ante up for big moves - with their fifth album, The Movement, featuring the children of Alphabet Rockers as songwriters, lead vocalists and the compelling voices of our times. Building on their mission to produce music that creates change, Alphabet Rockers crafted 13 new songs with a clear message - we have the power in our community to build a world of justice and belonging. Alphabet Rockers will tour The Movement in selection markets across the country, including an appearance at Austin City Limits in October 2022.
When the world shut down in March 2020, the Rockers were coming off their second GRAMMY-nomination for "Best Children's Album," and persisted with their intergenerational anti-racism work online through free community workshops, curriculum (We Got Work To Do), and virtual creative sessions with their core group of youth artists. The seminal work caught the eye of CBS Mornings who ran two national features on the significant positive impact the Alphabet Rockers had on children during these challenging times. The COVID-19 global pandemic was a racial reckoning across all industries, including children’s music and the GRAMMYs; Alphabet Rockers worked to transform family music by centering Black voices into the conversation and dismantling racial bias within the industry as co-founders of Family Music Forward. 1 Tribe Collective, a Black artist collective, emerged from this work and recorded the album All One Tribe, bringing Alphabet Rockers their 3rd GRAMMY nomination.
Alphabet Rockers utilize important questions to drive its creative process, including how to create justice in a country facing its racist truths – this led the group to an artist fellowship at the Othering & Belonging Institute at U.C. Berkeley supporting their early development of The Movement. The collective of children and adults asked questions, as simply as "when do you feel powerful, and when do you feel powerless?" and as complex as the tween writers asking, "how can people see that someone has changed?" and "how can the government use its resources to support the people, not just its systems?" The songs that came from this creative process on The Movement are bops -- with a depth that serves their intended audience - children wanting for everyone to be treated fairly and feel loved.
The Movement opens with an invitation to "connect the head and heart" as "when people connect -- that's how we find unity." The songwriters reflect on real moments from their lives, and lean on the conversations and interviews they conducted with restorative justice practitioners from Oakland and leaders like Angela Y. Davis. As writer Maya Flemingsays in her song, "Our Turn": "I've got a voice and I'm using it /And its way past time that you're hearing it /You can find a lot when you listen up." The voices of Alphabet Rockers are the balm for the reckoning of 2020. The Movement helps the whole family to understand their power, break biases, disrupt systems of oppression, and find community care. And "When it's all said and done - the word is LOVE."
The Movement will be released on all platforms on Friday, September 9.
For more information on Alphabet Rockers, please visit:
MIGGUEL ANGGELO BRINGS ENGLISH WITH AN ACCENT TO LINCOLN CENTER’S CLARK STUDIO THEATER, DECEMBER 1-3
Photo Credit: Nico Iliev
Migguel Anggelo is a Venezuelan-American singer-songwriter, multidisciplinary performing artist and countertenor, dancer, actor and painter. His work explores the intersections of his queer, Latino and immigrant identities using music, physical theater, dance, text and costume. As a theater creator, he has been awarded residencies to develop new works at MASS MoCA, the Kimmel Center, the Miami Light Project and beyond.
English with an Accent is an original musical production of dance-theater, helmed by Migguel Anggelo and a company of 10 dancers. These performances at Lincoln Center’s Clark Studio Theater, December 1-3 - which celebrate the project's album release - follow an immigrant caterpillar's arrival in New York City with hopes of becoming a butterfly. English with an Accent explores the attainability of the American dream through themes of freedom, safety, and self-worth. Directed, choreographed, and developed by Avihai Haham, the production boasts original music and lyrics composed by Migguel Anggelo and his longtime collaborator and music director Jaime Lozano. English with an Accent, the album, will be released on December 2. Watch the first music video for “So Ironic” here.
Migguel Anggelo: “I am very excited to bring English with an Accent to Lincoln Center – I’m so thankful for their generous support and for co-commissioning the piece. After sixteen long years, I am now (finally!) a naturalized U.S. citizen, so this work is especially meaningful to me. It represents my quest for safety, for happiness, for self-worth – and finding that in the United States, I can now call this country my home. Home and safety matter to everyone, regardless of where they are from, and it’s my hope that people who don’t normally see their stories reflected on stage, find theirs in our work.”
Tickets are available now on a choose-what-you-pay basis.
English with an Accent credits:
Conceived and Written by Migguel Anggelo
Music and Lyrics by Migguel Anggelo and Jaime Lozano
Musical Direction and Arrangements by Jaime Lozano
Directed, Choreographed, and Developed by Avihai Haham
Associate Director and Choreographer: Jakob Karr
Costume Design: Ryan Park
Lighting Design: Scott Davis
Recorded Music Production and Sound Design: Jaime Lozano and Demián Cantú
Executive Creative Producer and Production Design: David Stark
Production and Stage Management: Jessi Cotter
Identity and Graphic Design: Studio Usher
Casting: Mungioli Theatricals, Inc.
Management and Booking: Greg Kastelman / Unbound Artists
“A Migguel Anggelo performance is guaranteed to entertain and enthrall.” – Broadway World
"Migguel Anggelo exhilaratingly recalls the showmanship of Desi Arnaz and the performance art of Klaus Nomi" – Theater Scene
“[Migguel] was born to be on stage and delivers a performance with incredible honesty, humor, and flair… Anggelo forces his audiences to think and feel — and ultimately connects with them in a way that leaves an indelible and remarkable imprint.” – The Broadway Blog
About Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is the steward of the world’s leading performing arts center, an artistic and civic cornerstone for New York City comprised of eleven resident companies on a 16-acre campus. The nonprofit’s strategic priorities include: supporting the arts organizations that call Lincoln Center home to realize their missions and foster opportunities for collaboration across campus; championing inclusion and increasing the accessibility and reach of Lincoln Center’s work; and reimagining and the strengthening the performing arts for the 21st century and beyond, helping ensure their rightful place at the center of civic life.
Migguel Anggelo: Official site / Instagram / Twitter / Facebook / Linktree / YouTube
FILM REVIEW: BROS
When Hairy Met Slutty: The unlikely romance of BROS is its blindspot, but the jokes come fast and furious
by Arnold Wayne Jones
Sometimes, the aggressive marketing of a project can actually undermine our confidence in it.
Take Bros. When we first saw the trailer? Pure delight. But in the intervening months, we’ve been inundated by a a chorus reminding us that this is the first mainstream/sex-positive/big-budget/alphabet-inclusive/majority gay cast/R-rated/Hollywood studio-backed/wide-release/yadda yadda/adult gay rom-com EVER!!!! Subtext: It doesn’t matter if it’s good – it’s important. You do want to encourage gay cinema, don’t you? You’re expected to see it, to say you like it, and bring your friends to see it again… all in solidarity. Being entertaining almost seems incidental to our supporting it. And how can we really know if it’s any good, if the messaging is so unrelentingly politicized?
Courtesy of Universal Studios
So I was more than a little relieved when I ended up genuinely enjoying Bros as much as a I did. Important? Meh. It’s not the 1990s anymore; we are not starved for gay stories –any gay stories – that we will hungrily pretend to like dreck just so that we don’t have withdrawl. We’re post-Brokeback, post-Moonlight, post-Will & Grace. Even straight rom-coms find avenues of gay outreach. The bar has been raised. And for the most part, Bros sails over the bar like an Olympic pole-vaulter.
The premise is pretty standard in a heteronormative-cliche kinda way: Bobby (Billy Eichner) and Aaron (Luke Macfarlane) are two strands in the late-Gen-X DNA of gay dudes: Both excrutiatingly single to the point of relationship-phobic, but with very different vibes: Bobby is the cynic who thinks marriage is actually some kind of punishment for straight folks and gays should embrace their outsider status; Aaron is the meaningless-hookup gym-rat whose serial anti-monogamy gets him laid without commitment.
Courtesy of Universal Studios
Yet both are also walking contradictions: For all his disparagement of mainstream culture, Bobby – an erstwhile podcaster now tasked with running a yet-to-open gay history museum – is filled with righteous anger that gay stories haven’t been drilled into the culture like Washington chopping down a cherry tree or Betsy Ross sewing the flag. He’s determined that the museum will not be fun, but confrontational to the point of chastising. In the words of Sally Field, he wants you to like him, to really like him … and what he represents, which is kind of pill-ish. Aaron, on the other hand, has a sensitive side that isn’t served by the soullessness of Grindr dates. He’s a dull estate lawyer who dreams of something more satisfying; even his ripped body isn’t enough.
Courtesy of Universal Studios
The men more-or-less quickly meet up with the agreement that neither, heaven forbid, wants a relationship. It’s When Hairy Met Slutty. But because it is a rom-com, can there be any doubt where they will eventually end up?
The most convincing thread of the plot is the “com” side: The script, co-written by director Nicholas Stoller and Eichner himself, is dense with smart, and smart-alecky, one-liners. Many of the characters, even the small ones or walk-ons by the likes of Debra Messing, are sharply drawn and get their share of zingers. And even when the jokes thin out, the wise observations of gay culture are handled perfectly (for instance, when friends announce they are in a trouple, it’s played less as scandalous than as a lot of work; at the end, the three are still together, without judgment).
Courtesy of Universal Studios
It’s the rom that could have used a little tweaking. A downside of the screenplay is something that often arises when the writer is also the star: A tendency to make his character “right.” A major conflict is Aaron asking Bobby to “tone down” his excessive Bobby-ness when they hang out at Christmas with Aaron’s family. Rather than comply, Bobby intentionally antagonizes them until Aaron snaps out of embarrassment. It’s played as “never ask a gay man not to be himself” – that the initial request was the original sin – when, for me, it was more “you don’t have to have an opinion about everything and argue with my elderly parents out of spite.” The script almost never leaves Bobby in the wrong, even when he clearly is (such as his dictatorial attitude about the museum exhibits; he physically assaults his subordinates yet they apologize to him). Bobby is just a bit too sanctimonious, even when he’s right, to make us really believe Aaron would want him… or want him back.
Courtesy of Universal Studios
And that’s where the casting of Macfarlane proves to be Bros’s nuclear weapon. Macfarlane is shredded and gorgeous, simultaneously boasting smiling eyes that could melt gold, nipples that could cut glass and a sincerity that sells even the most unlikely twists. You totally buy why Bobby – who objects to the roided out pretty boy culture – would nonetheless be drawn to Aaron, and less understand why the feelings are mutual. Except that you do, because Macfarlane makes you.
The film is produced by Judd Apatow, and it reeks of his brand: the funny, quasi-explicit sex scenes, the raunchiness, the outrageously inappropriate anything-for-a-laughisms. But if it seems formulaic, hey, so is Coca-Cola, and who can resist a Coke?
Courtesy of Universal Studios
Peopled with a diverse cast of queer, trans, genderfluid actors – many even in the “straight” roles – Bros ultimately is kinda important. I’m not convinced because some suits at Universal greenlit a film they thought they could make money on, but because a joke-rich comedy delivers the goods …. and we don’t have to endure a bunch of cis-women whining to their girlfriends; we get abs and furry asses. That’s the step in the right direction.
Opens wide on Sept. 30
Queer Synth-Rocker Caleb De Casper Performs at Austin City Limits Festival
Austin, Texas– Caleb De Casper, the “alternative diva crowds want to rally behind” (Austin Chronicle) will be playing Austin City Limits Festival on weekend one, Sunday, October 9th on the Barton Springs Stage at 1:15pm before synth-poppers, Muna. As always, the show promises to be spectacularly unforgettable, but De Casper and the band have new surprises in store for the ACL audience. As Culture Map declared last month, "If theatrics are what you are after, don't miss this performance." The classically-trained artist was previously scheduled for the following weekend, October 16th at 11:15am, but was moved to a more ideal time slot.
The queer, electronic glam-rocker was invited to join the lineup of the popular festival (which draws crowds of 450,000 yearly) after a whirlwind year, which included the release of his new album Femme Boy, the designation of Caleb De Casper Day by the City of Austin on April 21st and being named June Artist Of The Month by tastemaker radio station KUTX FM. The artist also performed at The Long Center for a 2,000 cap Pride event, shared the stage with Big Freedia and A Giant Dog in front of packed crowds, as well as landing notable press including Teen Vogue and an interview on one of the most popular queer podcasts in the country, Feast of Fun.
Up next for De Casper is an otherworldly video steeped in fantasy and mythology for the single “Do You Feel” directed by Mexican filmmaker Robbie Cabrera. Stay tuned…
Photo by Stephanie Tacy
QUEER|ART ANNOUNCES QUEER|ART|FILM FALL 2022 SEASON
Co-Curated by Heather Lynn Johnson and Sarah Zapata
Queer|Art, New York City’s home for the creative and professional development of LGBTQ+ artists, is pleased to announce the upcoming Fall season of Queer|Art|Film, presented in person from September 19th – December 5th. Queer|Art|Film returns once again to the IFC Center with a season curated by multidisciplinary artists Heather Lynn Johnson and Sarah Zapata. Each month Queer|Art invites their favorite queer artists to present a film that inspired them, then holds a fascinating post-screening Q&A that illuminates the film and its impact on our guest's work and life.
This season, as we navigate a rollback of our right to bodily autonomy and rising fascist attacks on our community, these 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. The lineup includes performance icon Cassils alongside downtown darling Ela Troyano; interdisciplinary artist and oral historian Tamara Santibañez; multidisciplinary queer Caribbean artist Christopher Udemezue; and finally the truly legendary photographer and activist Lola Flash. The films promise to tickle all of your horror and sadomasochistic delights, so don’t miss these one-of-a-kind screenings!
Still images here.
Tickets here.
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Monday, September 19th
Cassils and Ela Troyano present Latin Boys Go to Hell
(Ela Troyano, 1997)
Five young Latinos with extreme passions interact and eventually explode across Brooklyn in this story of self-discovery, friction, and resentment. The film stars Irwin Ossa as 20-year-old Justin, John Bryant Davila as his handsome cousin Angel, and in his film debut, Mike Ruiz as Carlos. Presenting artist Cassils writes that “Ela cast Latin heartthrob Mike Ruiz, centering homosexual Latin representation over cis white West Hollywood twinkdom. This film flags John Waters, telenovela, and Pedro Almodóvar.” Shot in dreamy 16mm, the film glows with the fiery desire of its characters, who find themselves caught between their attraction to a machismo image and a longing for meaningful gay intimacy. Adapted from an unpublished novel by André Salas, this feature debut from legend of the downtown scene Ela Troyano is sure to get your blood pumping!
Tickets here.
About Cassils
CASSILS is a transgender artist who makes their own body the material and protagonist of their performances. Cassils’ art contemplates the history(s) of LGBTQIA+ violence, representation, struggle and survival. For Cassils, performance is a form of social sculpture: Drawing from the idea that bodies are formed in relation to forces of power and social expectations, Cassils’s work investigates historical contexts to examine the present moment. Cassils had recent solo exhibitions at HOME Manchester, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NYC; Institute for Contemporary Art, AU; Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts; School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Bemis Center, Omaha; MU Eindhoven, Netherlands.
About Ela Troyano
Ela Troyano is a writer, director, producer, and interdisciplinary artist. Her projects bring together different aesthetic histories and genres, from downtown New York avant-garde film and performance, to queer cinema, and Latinx film and video as well as commercial television. Troyano received the Teddy Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival for Carmelita Tropicana Your Kunst is Your Waffen—Your Art is Your Weapon, attended the Sundance Institute’s screenwriting workshop with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and received awards from Creative Capital, the Ford Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Latino Public Broadcasting, Independent Television Service, New York State Council on the Arts, Rockefeller Media, and a United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship.
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Monday, October 10th
Tamara Santibañez presents Bloodsisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism
(Michelle Handelman, 1995)
Interdisciplinary artist Tamara Santibañez presents Bloodsisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism, a deep dive into a community of Leatherdykes in San Francisco in the mid-90s. This debut documentary by filmmaker Michelle Handelman presents a rough collage of kink and BDSM practices, leaning into forms of play not often shown, even in queer films. From images of needle play to shots of extended BDSM scenes to tops directly addressing the audience as their submissives, the film is unflinching in its portrayal of this leather scene. Through collected interviews, an image of a community that is grappling with questions of forbidden desires, gender & sexual fluidity, and the politicization of their very existence begins to emerge. Between the bright colored overlays and the iconic 90s fashion (mullets everywhere!), the film itself transforms into a kind of a time capsule, documenting a moment in queer history in all its messy, complicated, campy glory.
Tickets here.
About Tamara Santibañez
Tamara Santibañez is an interdisciplinary artist and oral historian living and working in Brooklyn. They approach the body as a site for archiving and accessing personal and collective narratives and view tattooing as a political intervention. As a queer and trans artist, their practice memorializes the language and resistance strategies used by “othered” populations to build alternative worlds.
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Monday, November 7th
Christopher Udemezue presents Annihilation
(Alex Garland, 2018)
Multidisciplinary artist Christopher Udemezue presents Annihilation (2018) starring Natalie Portman as a biologist on an expedition into an environmental disaster zone created by a comet, as she looks for her husband who disappeared into the mysterious zone after volunteering to go on a special forces mission. Based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Jeff Vandermeer, the film follows a team of all female scientists as they embark on what appears to be a suicide mission into the mysterious zone known as “The Shimmer”. The film, directed by Alex Garland (Ex Machina), has drawn comparisons to 2001: A Space Odyssey and Tarkovsky’s Stalker. Annihilation challenges and expands upon what a sci-fi film can do while simultaneously grappling with massive existential questions and highly intimate personal ones in the lives of the characters. With a shocking ending that has kept audiences guessing for years following the film’s release, you won’t want to miss the chance to see this one on the big screen!
Tickets here.
About Christopher Udemezue
Born in Long Island, NY, Christopher Udemezue has shown at a variety of galleries and museums, including the New Museum, Queens Museum of Art, PS1 MoMa, Bruce High Quality Foundation, Mercer Union, Recess Gallery and Anat Ebgi Gallery. Udemezue utilizes his Jamaican heritage, the complexities of desire for connection, healing through personal mythology and ancestry as a primary source for his work. As the founder of the platforms RAGGA NYC & CONNEK JA, he completed a residency with the New Museum "All The Threatened and Delicious Things Joining One Another" in June 2017. In 2018, Udemezue was in the New Museum’s “Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon” 40-year anniversary show and a part of the chosen artists in The Shed's Open Call grant program/group show in 2019. In 2021, Chris was elected to be co-chair of the board at Recess Gallery, Brooklyn NY and had a solo show at Anat Ebgi Gallery in Los Angeles, California.
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Monday, December 5th
Lola Flash presents Beasts of the Southern Wild
(Benh Zeitlin, 2012)
The fall 2022 season of Queer|Art|Film concludes with Beasts of the Southern Wild, a dystopian family drama that takes place on the edge of the world. Six-year-old Hushpuppy (played by the remarkable Quvenzhané Wallis) and her ailing father Wink live in ‘The Bathtub’ – an island in the Mississippi Delta at constant risk of flooding. As her father’s illness worsens, so too does the climate around them, as melting polar ice brings rising floodwaters and prehistoric beasts to bear on their small community. Shot in a cinema-verite style by debut director Benh Zeitlin, and featuring a cast of amateur actors from a small Louisiana parish, the film achieves a documentary style even as it tells a fantastical tale. As presenter Lola Flash writes, “it speaks to the strength of community and centers family, in much the same way our LGBTQ+ families are empowered.”
Tickets here.
About Lola Flash
Lola Flash uses photography to challenge stereotypes and offer new ways of seeing that transcend and interrogate gender, sexual, and racial norms. Flash received their bachelor's degree from Maryland Institute and Masters from London College of Printing, in the UK. Flash works primarily in portraiture, engaging those who are often deemed invisible. Flash has work included in important public collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, MoMA, the African American Museum of Culture + History, in Washington, the Whitney and the Brooklyn Museum. Flash’s work welcomes audiences who are willing to not only look but see.
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About the Curators
Heather Lynn Johnson is an artist and poet living in Brooklyn, New York. Their work is characterized by its lyricism and cultural critique. Centered around Black American liberation and culture with an emphasis on objectification and lost histories, Heather uses an autobiographical framework and considers her work imbued by her lived experience as a butch Black lesbian. Their recent solo exhibition “The Essence We Leave Behind” at Nesto Gallery in Milton, Massachusetts (2022), included paintings and selected poems. Heather has been a co-curator for Queer|Art|Film since 2020, the 2019 Leslie-Lohman Museum Fellow, and the 2017 Literary Fellow for Queer|Art|Mentorship. She is the author of The Survival Guide For Queer Black Youth (Inpatient Press, 2017) and received an MFA with honors from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Sarah Zapata is an artist and writer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has been shown throughout the United States, as well as Mexico, Peru and the Netherlands. Zapata’s studio practice is firmly based in Fiber Arts, utilizing traditional weaving, coiling and latch-hook techniques to achieve immersive installations. Inspired by her Peruvian heritage and feminist theory, Zapata’s body of work addresses issues of labor, systems of power and control, Queerness, cultural relativism and the intersectionality of identity. She has had solo shows at the Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI, Museo MATE, Lima, Peru; Performance Space New York; Institute 193, Lexington, Kentucky; Deli Gallery, Brooklyn, New York; Museum of Arts and Design, New York; and El Museo Del Barrio, New York. She was a Queer|Art|Mentorship Literature Fellow in 2020.
About Queer|Art|Film
Presently celebrating its 11th consecutive year, this popular screening series, traditionally held monthly at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village, invites New York’s most notable and influential LGBTQ+ artists to present and discuss films that have inspired them. Presented with generous support from HBO, the series has hosted over 100 screenings and reaches more than 1,500 viewers annually. Past presenters include: Anohni, Kate Bornstein, Douglas Crimp, Miguel Gutierrez, Juliana Huxtable, Wayne Kostenbaum, Larry Kramer, Lisa Kron, Kia LaBeija, Craig Lucas, Genesis P-Orridge, Dee Rees, and Flawless Sabrina. Curated by Adam Baran, with special guest season curators.
About Queer|Art
Queer|Art was born out of the recognition of a generation of artists and audiences lost to the ongoing AIDS Crisis, and in a profound understanding that one of the many repercussions of that loss has been a lack of mentors and role models for a new generation of LGBTQ+ artists. Founded in 2009 by filmmaker Ira Sachs, Queer|Art serves as a ballast against this loss and seeks to highlight and address a continuing fundamental lack of both economic and institutional support for LGBTQ+ artists. Our mission is to provide individuals within our community with the tools, resources, and guidance they need to achieve success and visibility for their work at the highest levels of their field.
The current programs of Queer|Art include: the year-long Queer|Art|Mentorship program; the long-running Queer|Art|Film series, traditionally held monthly at the IFC Center in lower Manhattan; and Queer|Art|Awards, an initiative of grants, prizes, and awards that provides various kinds of direct support—monetary and otherwise—to LGBTQ+ artists.
A list of the intergenerational community of artists supported and brought together by Queer|Art includes: Silas Howard, Jennie Livingston, Matt Wolf, Hilton Als, Sarah Schulman, Pamela Sneed, Justin Vivian Bond, Jibz Cameron, Trajal Harrell, John Kelly, Geoffrey Chadsey, Everett Quinton, Geo Wyeth, Angela Dufresne, Nicole Eisenman, Avram Finkelstein, Chitra Ganesh, Pati Hertling, Jonathan Katz, Tourmaline & Sasha Wortzel, Jess Barbagallo, Morgan Bassichis, Monstah Black, Yve Laris Cohen, Troy Michie, Tommy Pico, Justin Sayre, Colin Self, Jacolby Satterwhite, Rick Herron, and Hugh Ryan, among many others.
Website: www.queer-art.org
Instagram: @queerart
RuPaul’s Drag Race Night of the Living Drag
The North American Halloween Tour
Fresh off RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7, Yvie Oddly stars as The Boogieman in RuPaul’s Drag Race Night of the Living Drag, an extravagantly produced live stage production that draws inspiration from Dante's Divine Comedy. Joining Yvie Oddly in the annual Halloween spectacular will be a cast of sinful RuPaul’s Drag Race queens that have been summoned from the depths of the Boogieman’s fiery hell, including Aquaria the Sloth, Asia O’Hara the Envious, Bosco the Lustful, DeJa Skye the Greedy, Kim Chi the Glutton, Lady Camden the Proud, Rosé the Vain, and Vanessa Vanjie the Wrathful. Presented by Voss Events, in collaboration with World of Wonder, RuPaul’s Drag Race Night of the Living Drag will take place in eight North American cities including in Chicago (at the Rosemont Theatre on 10/25) and New York (at Kings Theatre on October 30).
“Prepare for chills and thrills in this year’s production of Night of the Living Drag,” promises Yvie Oddly. “As the ultimate queen of curiosities, I am excited to host a fierce and frightful exploration into all of world’s most wicked sins.”
RuPaul’s Drag Race Night of the Living Drag will feature spine-chilling performances, haunted scenery, and macabre costumes; all meant to shock and amaze. “We are pulling out all the stops with this production,” says the live show’s producer Brandon Voss. “It will be an immersive experience with horrifying tableaus, state-of-the-art lighting and a spook-tacular sound system. We advise audiences to prepare themselves to be dragged into the deepest depths of the Boogieman’s hell.”
The RuPaul’s Drag Race Night of the Living Drag tour launches October 20th in Houston and runs through October 30 in New York with stops in Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, and more.
Tickets for RuPaul’s Drag Race Night of the Living Drag are available at VossEvents.com. Ticket prices range from $50 - $99. There are also a limited number of VIP passes that include a pre-show meet-and-greet available for $249.
CAUGHT IN THE ACT: A MEMOIR BY COURTNEY ACT
Behind SHANE JENEK’s rise to global fame as beloved drag queen COURTNEY ACT is a story of searching for and finding oneself. Told with Courtney’s trademark candor and wit, CAUGHT IN THE ACT: A MEMOIR (Pantera Press: September 13, 2022) is a hilarious, often scandalous, and at times heartbreaking, peek into the entertainment icon’s journey towards understanding gender, sexuality and identity.
In CAUGHT IN THE ACT: A MEMOIR, Courtney writes about growing up in Brisbane, Australia in the 80s and 90s and how adolescent Shane’s unconventional angst was pitted against the love of his traditionally wholesome parents. She shares tales of the thrill in discovering the Sydney drag scene and then unflinchingly recounts her adventures into its seedier side that led her to dabbling in methamphetamines and multiple sexual encounters with a broad spectrum of sexualities and genders including straight-identifying men.
Of course, Courtney also dives deep into her wild ride into the world of entertainment, losing so many TV reality shows and finally winning one. There's lots of Drag Race tea spilled, too, including her shaky introduction to Adore Delano and oh, the time RuPaul blocked her on Twitter.
In CAUGHT IN THE ACT: A MEMOIR, Courtney Act does what she does best: she dazzles and titillates. At the same time, her honest reflections help readers to reexamine and appreciate wrong choices they may have made that ironically helped steer them toward the right path on their own life’s journey.
BMI IS BACK FOR 2022 AUSTIN CITY LIMITS FESTIVAL
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (September 9, 2022) – Broadcast Music Inc.® (BMI®) is thrilled to be back at Zilker Park for the 2022 Austin City Limits Music Festival on October 7-9 & 14-16, 2022. For the 18th year, BMI brings its curated, musically diverse lineup to ACL for two consecutive weekends of exciting music discovery.
The festival kicks off on Friday, October 7th with indie-pop sensation, girlhouse, followed by the energetic and expressive Lilyisthatyou, and Austin-based indie-rock band Sarah and the Sundays, along with several others. Additional Weekend One performers include sibling duo Aly & AJ, Craigslist-based songbirds Darkbird, and the haunting Isaac Dunbar.
Weekend Two will find more exceptional talent on the BMI stage, including the trailblazing country writer Lily Rose, psych-rock and indie-folk band The Brummies, and post-punk rockers Urban Heat. Other acts include R&B songwriter Siena Liggins and avid storytellers Sloppy Jane.
“BMI is always excited to return to Zilker Park for Austin City Limits, and this year is no exception,” says Mason Hunter, AVP Creative, Nashville. “We love working with C3 and are thrilled to be partnering with them for another four years, so that we can continue to invest in the Austin community and highlight our best and brightest talent on the BMI stage.”
For well over a decade, the BMI stage at ACL has had a hand in launching some of music’s biggest stars, including memorable performances from Miranda Lambert (‘03), Alessia Cara (‘15), Luke Combs (‘16), City and Colour (‘08), Gary Clark, Jr. (‘11), Shakey Graves (‘13), Jon Pardi (‘11, ‘14), Catfish and the Bottlemen (‘14), lovelytheband (‘18), and Maren Morris (‘16), who went on to win a GRAMMY within a year of appearing on the BMI ACL stage.
Each year, the BMI Lounge provides shade, rest, food, and drink for our performers and guests. This year’s lounge is sponsored by Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Waterloo Sparkling Water, and Liquid Death Mountain Water.
For more information about the BMI stage at 2022 Austin City Limits Music Festival, please visit aclfestival.com or check out https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/bmi-is-back-for-2022-austin-city-limits-festival. The full BMI stage lineup is below.
WEEKEND ONE
Friday, October 7
Girlhouse
Lilyisthatyou
Sarah and the Sundays
Saturday, October 8
Katzu Oso
Jessia
Charlotte Sands
Aly & AJ
Sunday, October 9
Chicocurlyhead
Darkbird
Isaac Dunbar
WEEKEND TWO
Friday, October 14
Early James
Dro Kenji
Lily Rose
Saturday, October 15
Izzy Heltai
Ben Reilly
Sloppy Jane
The Brummies
Sunday, October 16
Siena Liggins
Joshua Ray Walker
Urban Heat
Jackson Dean
STEWART TAYLOR RELEASES VISUAL FOR SONG, “MAYBE WE SHOULDN’T TALK”
Stewart Taylor is out now with the visual for “Maybe We Shouldn’t Talk”, his catchy true-to-life pop tune about breaking ties with an ex-lover. Directed by Benjamin Farren and filmed primarily at Vasquez Rocks National Park in California, the video depicts the unraveling of Taylor’s last serious relationship. “It can be extremely difficult to move on from someone you love,” he reflects, “even when you know it’s bad for you. Sometimes the only thing you can do to stop the unhealthy cycles of a toxic relationship is to stop talking altogether.” Stewart Taylor’s "Maybe We Shouldn’t Talk" is being distributed independently and is available on Apple Music, Spotify, and all digital platforms.
“My ex and I argued over anything and everything,” Taylor continues from his LA home. “If there was a boundary that I set, he would cross it every time. I’m not saying he was a bad person. I did things, too, that hurt the relationship. It’s just that we all have our demons. I didn’t respond well to his and he didn’t respond well to mine. Some people simply shouldn’t be together.”
The video for “Maybe We Shouldn’t Talk” reflects on the song’s portrayal of the struggles of a venomous relationship. Taylor made sure to include a game of tug of war to depict the constant push and pull. There are also scenes with the two lovers chasing one another, battling it out and then passionately making up, all in front of a fantastical canyon backdrop. “It was fun to recreate my life through the lens of fantasy,” he says. He admits he took some creative license. “Did my ex and I ever fight and chase each other through a desert? No. But it’s more interesting to recreate our dynamic against that backdrop because it represents how it often felt for me emotionally.”
Jake Dean Taylor plays the role of the ex-boyfriend in “Maybe We Shouldn’t Talk”. Australian Actor Stephen Multari and up and coming pop artist Kelechi also play troubled love interests in the video. Dancers are Kyle McCraw and former Glee cast member RILAN. Julie Vegliante, who has worked with Lady Gaga, choreographed the video. The role of the snake is played by Beau, a real-life sweet and well-behaved python that was provided by the same family of handlers who supplied Britney Spears with the seven-foot python she performed with in her “I’m A Slave 4 U” production at the 2001 VMA’s.
Stewart Taylor is an LA-based singer, songwriter, dancer, and MMG model. He grew up in a small town outside of New York City, performing in local talent shows and Lower East Side clubs. He graduated from Boston’s Berklee College of Music.
He has collaborated with a number of Grammy-nominated songwriters and producers including Charlie Puth, Kara DioGuardi, (P!nk, Katy Perry) and David Pramik (Selena Gomez) and has released multiple singles, notably 2019’s “Mess Your Hair Up,” 2021’s “Cover Boy”, and 2022’s “Maybe We Shouldn’t Talk,” a song Stewart Taylor premiered earlier this summer at California’s first-ever Venice Pride Festival.
“My look, sound, and artistry have changed dramatically since I first started releasing music in 2015,” Stewart Taylor acknowledges. “Back in college, I was heavily inspired by David Bowie and everyone I came across expected me to sing rock music. I love rock, but my heart is in soul and pop, more in the line of early George Michael and Prince. I’ve worked hard to get in touch with the R&B influences I grew up on and I’ve become a better dancer, singer, and songwriter in ways that I never could have imagined a decade ago.”
If there is one thing Stewart Taylor has learned these past few years, it’s the importance of great friends, creativity, and walking away from unhealthy relationships. “I learned the hard way that being half of a destructive duo will never make a person whole,” he says. “Walking away is so much easier said than done, but if I can leave the toxic relationship I was in, I believe anyone can.”
Stewart Taylor’s “Maybe We Shouldn’t Talk” is being distributed independently and is available on Apple Music, Spotify, and all digital platforms. Visit stewarttaylorofficial.com. Follow on IG @imstewarttaylor
SNEAK PEEK: A behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming BROS
By Arnold Wayne Jones
We’ve been excited about seeing the upcoming bromantic queermedy Bros ever since the trailers dropped earlier this summer. But we got an even closer look last night when a mobile activation parked just off the Strip. While technical difficulties prevented the public from getting a walk-through, we were able to screen three extended scenes plus some backstage glimpses of the boy-meets-boy comedy starring (and written by) Billy Eichner, which opens at the end of the month. And the sampler was an appetizing taste of what promises to be a feast of laughter and love.
Virtually the entire cast is made up of LGBTQ actors, from drag artists to twinks, from twunks to trans, from dykes to drama-queens, it’s a panoply of sassy, empowering personalities that expertly captures the complicated dynamics of diverse people unified in their goal of living out loud with a sense of empowerment, responsibility and community… with a hearty dose of shade offering cool relief.
We’ll have a full review prior to the Sept. 30 release date, but plan your moviegoing schedule accordingly!
Thank Me Later: De Nada Tequila- Product Review
I first heard about De Nada Tequila from a New York City Pride party hosted at Skylark. Andy Cohen was one of the many names in attendance and while I was upset that I couldn't make it, there seemed to be a silver lining. Our friends at Deussen were kind enough to send some bottles of the reposado to our team in Texas. I figured since they put us back in the Pride spirit I should return the favor by giving our readers a taste in the form of a review. Pinky’s up, now sip… (literally)
De Nada is a high-quality, sipping tequila. While you can make an exceptional margarita with this delicious spirit, it is very much one I would recommend enjoying with a single piece of ice. Personally, with both quality bourbon and tequila, I prefer to allow the drink to breath and the ice cube to melt ever so slightly. This allows your bevie the opportunity to oxygenate and can even shave off the little bite that, let’s face it, comes with even the highest-quality liquors. Either way, I guarantee you will not be needing salt and a lime chaser for this one.
The reposado we enjoyed had palate notes of vanilla, caramel and cinnamon. Breathe deep and you’ll find alluring aromas of peach. I know… yum!
However, if you’re one who must mix a drink (maybe you’re not in the mood for a stiff one), I suggest a variation on a classic. The Old Fashioned.
Moda Classico (Old Fashioned)
You’ll need:
2 orange peel
2 bing cherries (optional)
1 tbsp agave nectar
3 ounces De Nada Tequila
2 dashes orange bitters
The only thing basic about this cocktail is mixing it.
Add small cube ice to a tall glass and mix in your De Nada Tequila with the agave nectar. Next add dashes of orange bitters and stir thoroughly. Once the drink is ice cold, strain the contents into a low ball glass. You’ll garnish with an orange peel and in the case you’re feeling really festive, throw in a couple of bing cherries.
This drink is ideal for pre-gaming. And if you spend the rest of the evening ordering watered-down vodka soda at least you can say you spent part of the night being classy. But in all seriousness, we need to put a little more thought and effort into what we’re consuming. As my late friend Stephen Moser once said: “Alcohol should enhance the atmosphere, not kidnap it.” Wise words that I wholeheartedly agree with. One thing for sure, when your friends try this libation I guarantee they’ll be thanking you for taking the extra time to add something special to the evening- to that you can respond swiftly with… De Nada.
Non-Binary Queer Femme Artist THE ORACLE Releases “Cloud 9 Angel” Visual
The Final Single from Debut EP, Lost Amulet
THE ORACLE returns this month with a new visual for “Cloud 9 Angel”, the final chapter of their debut EP Lost Amulet. The track is magical, dreamy, ethereal; it celebrates the abundance of nature by offering a moment of surreal escapism. Reflecting on the fantastical whimsy of the song, THE ORACLE and co-director Laura Weyl @metametagasm shot its visual in several iconic NYC locations including the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, and on the historic carousel in Prospect Park.
“We aimed to capture the crystal desert, a beautiful place of dreams, in the visual,” THE ORACLE explains. “When I think of the crystal desert, I think of Brian Froud’s Faerie realm, the sandscapes in the sci fi classic Dune, as well as the hallucinatory visual landscapes of the liquid planet in Solaris. The crystal desert can be a wondrous place, but it is also treacherous with danger lurking in hidden corners. It is best to travel over it securely with a loved one at your side.”
“Cloud 9 Angel” is one of the six tracks on THE ORACLE’s debut EP from August 2021, Lost Amulet. In the album, the nonbinary queer femme artist blends a love of poetry with soaring vocals, a futuristic sound, and deeply emotional narratives. “Cloud 9 Angel” stands apart from the other moody tracks on the EP due to the hopeless romanticism and naivete of the lyrics and sound. No other track on the EP features the bouncy glitches, progressive drums, and soaring melodies that carries this track.
“Cloud 9 Angel was written while a friend and I were on crystal cave exploration in Riviera Maya, Mexico,” THE ORACLE continues. “The song came to me with the beat, a progression of dreamy, enduring and playful love between two souls. Galen Tipton provides the production, which is a satisfying blend of drum, bass and twinkly pop beats.”
The song relates to THE ORACLE personally because they are a self-identified hopeless romantic who works to paint the reverie of love through all of their relationships. “I am deeply spiritual, a dreamer, but also woefully timid. It can be hard to relate my deepest wishes to someone I care about when there is so much fear involved. My heart wrote the song from this state of mind.”
THE ORACLE was born in Jerusalem, Israel as Julia Sinelnikova and until five-years-old, lived in St. Petersburg, Russia. Now living in Brooklyn, NY, THE ORACLE remains an artist, working predominantly in sculpture, lighting design and performance, but also currently expanding their expressiveness into recording and DJ production.Their music has become a soundscape for THE ORACLE’S video art and light art ideas to come together through performance. “I want my music to encourage psychedelic exploration, excessive dreaming, and the imagination of new, utopian and dystopian worlds,” THE ORACLE sums up. “Through listening to my songs, I aim to reveal my personas and the details of the worlds in my mind to my audiences.”
THE ORACLE is nearly ready to reveal their ORACLE666 album, the follow-up to Lost Amulet. A music video shot at THE ORACLE’s NYC studio and at The Invisible House in the Joshua Tree Desert is forthcoming, from that album.
Follow THE ORACLE on Instagram.com @ or_acle. Other links.
MEGAN THEE STALLION RELEASES NEW VIDEO FOR “HER” FROM NEW LP “TRAUMAZINE”
“Traumazine is an album that leaves you reeling slightly, both impressed and strangely grateful – convinced of Megan Thee Stallion’s brilliance” - The Guardian
“Traumazine, is a thrill ride of a listen, a motley mix of slick bops and searing confessionals that wonderfully encapsulate all of her various vibes.” - Rolling Stone
Grammy award-winning recording artist, entrepreneur and philanthropist Megan Thee Stallion unleashed the brand-new music video for “HER”, which was directed by Colin Tilley. Watch it HERE.
“HER” comes off the Houston native’s latest LP ‘Traumazine’ and is an anthem that celebrates strong, independent women across the world and embraces all elements of who they are.
Megan recently released her highly-anticipated LP ‘Traumazine’ on Aug. 12, which includes features from the hottest names in music including Dua Lipa, Key Glock, Jhené Aiko, Rico Nasty, Latto, Lucky Daye, Pooh Shiesty as well as Houston staples such as Sauce Walka, Big Pokey & Lil Keke.
The new project invites listeners into Megan’s deepest thoughts and touches on her journey of self-actualization and dealing with trauma. It also includes previously-released songs, such as “Pressurelicious,” “Sweetest Pie,” and “Plan B”.
QUEER|ART & THE ROBERT GIARD FOUNDATION ANNOUNCE WINNER AND RUNNER-UP FOR ROBERT GIARD GRANT FOR EMERGING LGBTQ+ PHOTOGRAPHERS
Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, 2021 by Chen Xiangyun.
Queer|Art, New York City’s home for the creative and professional development of LGBTQ+ artists, in partnership with The Robert Giard Foundation, is pleased to announce the winner of The Robert Giard Grant for Emerging LGBTQ+ Photographers, Chen Xiangyun, and runner-up Camilo Godoy. This year’s awarded projects celebrate the richness of intimacy within queer communities.
Chen Xiangyun will receive a $10,000 cash grant to support the development of her body of work which documents first and second-generation QTPOC immigrants across the United States. The work renders images of queer intimacy and vulnerability, especially among people of color, through authentic visual representations of their worlds. While photographing, the artist interviewed each sitter and asked about how their cultural backgrounds informed their experiences of being queer in America. Xiangyun’s ongoing series depicts people of diverse ethnicities, queer identities and regions, charting the emotional intricacies of queer life.
On receiving the 2022 Robert Giard Grant, Xiangyun writes, "I’m very honored to receive the Robert Giard Grant and I can’t wait to begin traveling the country to meet and photograph more queer people of color. It is my goal to increase queer visibility, portray the richness and complexity of our emotional experience, and reach more diverse ethnicities. As a Chinese lesbian immigrant and emerging photographic storyteller, this grant is an exciting opportunity for me to realize my ideas and grow my LGBTQ+ and art communities. I am very grateful for this award."
Camilo Godoy will receive a $5,000 cash grant to support his long-term project AMIGXS, a series of assertive photographs of friends and lovers engaged in acts of love and lust. The project is inspired by 20th century queer photography and publishing legacies sustained by erotic publications like Physique Pictorial and Sierra Domino. Through AMIGXS, Godoy manipulates scale to toy with the boundaries between the private and the public – presentations of each photograph range from zine to billboard. Ultimately, the photographs in AMIGXS celebrate friendship and insist on love as a way of life to imagine subversive ways of being. Hi
On being named runner-up for the 2022 Robert Giard Grant, Godoy writes, "Support for queer artists is fundamental to resist the ongoing catastrophic and conservative moment impacting us. Receiving this funding from the Robert Giard Foundation is an affirmation of my work. It is also a celebration of my relationship, and the people in my photographs, to the wonderful queer legacy of Robert Giard and of the many artists he photographed."
Organized in partnership with The Robert Giard Foundation and Queer|Art, The Robert Giard Grant for Emerging LGBTQ+ Photographers supports and promotes self-taught, early career or otherwise emerging LGBTQ+ artists, awarded on a yearly basis. This support is vital for emerging artists, who may lack the financial resources or institutional support available to more established artists. 215 applications were received for this award cycle. The 2022 judging panel comprised artists and arts professionals across the United States and Europe including: Jacqueline Francis, Naima Green, Sunil Gupta, Lorena Molina, and Jennie Ricketts.
About Chen Xiangyun, Winner
Chen Xiangyun is a Chinese lesbian photographer living in Brooklyn, New York. Her art practice employs bookmaking, analog film and photographs. Her work is rooted from her sexuality and Chinese upbringing. Chen has shown her work both nationally and internationally, including the Pingyao International Photography Festival in China, Baxter Street Camera Club of New York, Anthology Film Archives as well as Experimental Film Fest. About her series, Chen Xiangyun writes:
“This work is about centering images of queer intimacy and vulnerability, especially queer POC, through authentic visual representations of our worlds. […] I am making pictures that I wish I could have seen. Ever since I was a kid, I had dreamt about being told that it was possible to be gay and live an honest life. Looking back at the discrimination, shame, and guilt that I experienced, I want my pictures to say this to queer people who might be looking for courage like I was.”
2022 Robert Giard Grant Judge and multidisciplinary artist and educator Lorena Molina writes: “I really was drawn by the tension between the intimacy and distance in Xiangyun's portraits. As well as the strong push and pull between coldness and warmness in the work, which I think is realistic in any intimate relationship. Also, the people photographed seem in strong collaboration with Xiangyun, and Xiangyun is in charge of how much they share that special moment with the viewer. I'm really excited to see the project proposed for the Robert Giard Foundation Grant and to learn more about their stories.
About Camilo Godoy, Runner-up
Camilo Godoy is an artist and educator born in Bogotá and based in New York. He has participated in residencies at Movement Research, International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), coleção moraes-barbosa, Recess, New Dance Alliance, among others. Godoy's work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, Leslie-Lohman Museum, CUE, OCDChinatown, PROXYCO Gallery, New York; Moody Center, Houston; UNSW Galleries, Sydney; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Quito; among others. He has performed at Danspace Project, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Center for Performance Research, New York; Toronto Biennial; and Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt.
Camilo Godoy writes: “AMIGXS is a project in which I represent and play with ideas about intimacy and exposure, private and public, and the shifting scales of zine and billboard. The photographs of AMIGXS celebrate friendship and insist on love as a way of life to imagine different subversive ways of being. This project has been in development for over three years, and has been mainly self-funded zines. I’ve had the privilege of presenting this project to be experienced as zines, small framed photographs, large-scale photographs to occupy an entire exhibition wall, and in public programs in which I invited artist friends to perform their work related to love and friendship. The relationship between shifting scales of zine, printed photograph, and billboard is one that I intend to continue in the photobook. I also desire to reference the history of erotic publications to explore ways to be in dialogue with past aesthetic and conceptual legacies.”
2022 Robert Giard Grant judge and photographer, curator, and editor Jennie Ricketts says of Godoy’s work: “Camilo’s AMIGXS is a celebration of friendship, love, lust using black and white photography to assert subversive ways of being, reflecting classical form and scale, which on the page creates a dialogue between contemporary zine and billboard formats.”
In addition to the winners and runners up, three other visual artists were acknowledged as finalists for this year—Heesoo Kwon, Giancarlo Montes Santangelo, and Fred Zucule.
About Heesoo Kwon, Finalist
Heesoo Kwon is a visual artist and anthropologist from South Korea currently based in the Bay Area, California. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Et Al and Studio 2W, San Francisco; Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Berkeley; and CICA Museum and Visual Space Gunmulsai, South Korea. She has participated in group exhibitions at the CICA Museum; BAMPFA, Berkeley; 47 Canal, New York; Chinese Culture Center, San Francisco; Slash Gallery, San Francisco; and Site Gallery, Sheffield, UK, among others. Her other accolades include the Young Korean Artist Award from the CICA Museum, a finalist in the 20th Seoul International ALT Cinema & Media Festival, a finalist of the Sheffield DocFest Arts Programme, a winner of the Roselyn Schneider Eisner Prize for Photos and Art Practice, and a finalist of Queer|Art|Prize in 2021.
About Giancarlo Montes Santangelo, Finalist
Giancarlo Montes Santangelo, native of the DC Metropolitan area, graduated from SUNY Purchase in 2018 with a BFA in photography. In 2019, Giancarlo exhibited his photographs alongside Paul Mpagi Sepuya and other collaborators as part of the Whitney Biennial. In 2020, he published his first monograph, "Improvising Sight Lines" with Monolith Editions – a book that weaves together images and writing and is held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the MoMA. Giancarlo was recently awarded the Aperture x Google Creator Labs Photo Fund and completed residencies with Tangent Projects and TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image. He photographs and collages in an effort to map out where he comes from and where he wants to go. Collaged photographs bring together the artist’s own body and staged scenes against archival images.
About Fred Zucule, Finalist
Fred Zucule aka Kuln’Zu is a non-binary lens-based artist born and raised in Mozambique, and Kenya. Their aesthetic practice explores the transformative quality of art to heal and offer strategies of care, intimacy and mindfulness from an Afroqueer lens. They attend to the visual cultures and theories, work and life, of and from, a Black/Queer/Diaspora. This is their frontier. Having lived in 8 cities to complete their degree between ‘homes’ during the pandemic, portraiture was their chosen mode of care and conversation with themselves and their community. Portraiture was a lifeline for a life-in-transit, with bedrooms and living rooms as studios. They hold a BA in Africana Studies from Pomona College, and they are an alumnus of the African Leadership Academy in South Africa.
About the 2022 Judges
Jacqueline Francis is an art historian, curator, and occasional artist. She is the author of Making Race: Modernism and “Racial Art” in America (2012) and co-editor of Romare Bearden: American Modernist (2011). She is co-Executive Editor of Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art and a co-founder of the Association for Critical Race Art History. Her curatorial projects include “side by side|in the world” (2019, San Francisco Art Commission). A member of the Three Point Nine Art Collective, she exhibited the video RUN in the group’s exhibition at Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Art in June 2021.
Naima Green is an artist, photographer, and educator from New York. Her practice is an invitation to participate, observe, and consider safety, utopia, and intimacy. Her work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including at Fotografiska New York, Smart Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, International Center of Photography, Houston Center for Photography, Bronx Museum, BRIC, Gallery 102, Gracie Mansion Conservancy, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Arsenal Gallery, amongst others. Her works are in the collections of Barnard College Library, Decker Library at MICA, Fleet Library at RISD, ICP Library, Leslie-Lohman Museum, MoMA Library, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: Hirsch Library, National Gallery of Art, Olin Library, Cornell University, Smart Museum of Art, and Teachers College, Columbia University.
Sunil Gupta (b. New Delhi 1953) MA (RCA) PhD (Westminster) lives in London and has been involved with independent photography as a critical practice for many years focusing on race, migration and queer issues. A retrospective was shown at The Photographers’ Gallery, London (2020/21) and will move to Ryerson Image Center, Toronto 2022. He is a Professorial Fellow at UCA, Farnham. His latest book is “London 1982” Stanley Barker 2021 and his current exhibitions include; “The New Pre-Raphaelites” the the Holburne Museum, Bath. His work is in many public collections including; Tokyo Museum of Photography, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Royal Ontario Museum, Tate and the Museum of Modern Art. His work is represented by Hales Gallery (New York, London), Stephen Bulger Gallery (Toronto) and Vadehra Art Gallery (New Delhi).
Lorena Molina is a Salvadoran multidisciplinary artist and educator. She is an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Cincinnati. Through the use of photography, video, performance and installation, she explores identity, intimacy, pain, and how we witness the pain of others. She received her Master of Fine Art degree from the University of Minnesota in 2015 and her Bachelor of Fine Art from California State University, Fullerton, in 2012. She is part of the upcoming traveling exhibition, The Regional at the Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati, and Kemper Contemporary Art Museum.
Jennie Ricketts is an independent photography editor, curator, consultant and mentor. For 17 of those years she was a picture researcher and then picture editor at The Observer Magazine, commissioning and editing photography which attracted international recognition and widespread publication. She launched the Jennie Ricketts Gallery in Brighton in 2006 while writing and lecturing and now operates from County Wicklow, Ireland as an online space representing international photographers. She is currently a Trustee for Autograph ABP, The Martin Parr Foundation and a member of the Advisory Board for PhotoIreland, Dublin.
About Robert Giard
Robert Giard (1939-2002) was a portrait, landscape, and figure photographer who came to the practice of photography relatively late in life. In 1972, he began to take photographs, concentrating on landscapes of the South Fork of Long Island, portraits of friends, many of them artists and writers in the region, and the nude figure. He is best known for photographing over 500 LGBTQ+ writers and activists. A selection from his project, Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers, was published in 1997 by MIT Press and lead to a groundbreaking exhibit at the New York Public Library the following year.
In 1985, after seeing a performance of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, as the AIDS crisis raged, Giard decided to turn his camera towards the LGBTQ+ literary community to preserve a record of queer lives and histories. He began documenting LGBTQ+ literary figures, both established and emerging, in a series of unadorned, yet sometimes witty and playful portraits that would eventually number over 500 by the time of his death.
Giard’s work can be found in the collections of The National Portrait Gallery, The Library of Congress, The Brooklyn Museum, the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, the San Francisco Public Library, the New York Public Library, the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; his complete archive, including work books and ephemera, can be found at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
About The Robert Giard Foundation
The Robert Giard Foundation (RGF) is a nonprofit charitable organization launched in 2002, following the death of the pioneering American photographer Robert Giard, to honor his legacy and focus on the future of LGBTQ+ photography. RGF promotes the use of Giard’s work for educational purposes and supports public programs focusing on queer photography as well as LGBTIQ+ cultural and political movements.
The Giard Foundation provides annual support to self-taught, early career, or otherwise emerging photographers who illuminate aspects of gender and sexuality in their work. Recipients of RGF grants empower and amplify queer voices while helping to build a strong and self-reflective community. Established at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, City University of New York in 2008, and relocated to Queer|Art in 2019, the Giard Grant program has awarded over $100,000. in competitive prize money to 15 projects in the U.S. and around the world. It is the largest program of its kind anywhere.
Website: http://robertgiardfoundation.org/
Twitter: @GiardFoundation
Instagram: @robertgiardfoundation
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RobertGiardFoundation/
About Queer|Art
Queer|Art launched in 2009 to support a generation of LGBTQ+ artists that lost mentors to the AIDS Crisis of the 1980s. By fostering the confident expression of LGBTQ+ artists’ perspectives, stories, and identities, Queer|Art empowers a population that has been historically suppressed, disenfranchised, and often overlooked by traditional institutional and economic support systems. The current programs of Queer|Art include: the year-long Queer|Art|Mentorship program; the long-running Queer|Art|Film series, held monthly at the IFC Center in lower Manhattan; and Queer|Art|Awards, a new initiative of grants, prizes, and awards that provides various kinds of direct support—monetary and otherwise—to LGBTQ+ artists.
The Queer|Art|Mentorship program, launched in 2010, produces an evolving intergenerational dialogue within the LGBTQ+ arts community that has a direct impact on the landscape of contemporary art and culture as a whole. The program, which supports a year-long exchange between emerging and established artists, has propelled the careers of a new generation of creators. Queer|Art|Film, which has presented more than 100 screenings since 2009, provides a space for invited artists to present films that have inspired them, charting a uniquely queer cultural lineage through cinema to other artistic disciplines. Queer|Art|Awards was initiated in 2017 with the Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant and the introduction of the Queer|Art|Prize (for Sustained Achievement and Recent Work). In 2018, the Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant for Queer Women(+) Dance Artists was initiated; more to be announced soon.
A list of the intergenerational community of artists supported and brought together by Queer|Art includes: Silas Howard, Jennie Livingston, Matt Wolf, Hilton Als, Sarah Schulman, Pamela Sneed, Justin Vivian Bond, Jibz Cameron, Trajal Harrell, John Kelly, Geoffrey Chadsey, Everett Quinton, Geo Wyeth, Angela Dufresne, Nicole Eisenman, Avram Finkelstein, Chitra Ganesh, Pati Hertling, Jonathan Katz, Tourmaline & Sasha Wortzel, Jess Barbagallo, Morgan Bassichis, Monstah Black, Yve Laris Cohen, Troy Michie, Tommy Pico, Justin Sayre, Colin Self, Jacolby Satterwhite, Rick Herron, and Hugh Ryan, among many others.
Website: www.queer-art.org
Twitter: @queerartnyc
Instagram: @queerart
Facebook: @queerartnyc