Queer|Art to Present First Annual Queer|Art|Prize This Fall

New York-based nonprofit Queer|Art will present the inaugural Queer/Art/Prize, an unprecedented award and ceremony that recognizes the work of diverse emerging and renowned LGBTQ artists, on November 2, 7:30pm at Hudson Mercantile, 500 W. 36th Street).

The ceremony will gather invitees in a space replete with performances, video, and text installations that encapsulate works from some of today's most visionary and uncompromising artists. Made possible with support from HBO and developed in collaboration with the Queer|Art artist community, Queer/Art/Prize immediately establishes itself as one of the most significant awards for LGBTQ artists in the world.

Queer/Art/Prize attendees will encounter numerous video installations, displayed on stacked vintage televisions, that give a sweeping view of the vast scope of queer expression with which Queer|Art has been affiliated. Works by artists who have participated in the organization's programs since 2009 will be featured. These include excerpts from films such as James Bidgood's groundbreaking erotic 1971 fantasyPink Narcissus and Charles Ludlam's once-lost 1987 manic experiment in camp cinema Museum of Wax, starring Everett Quinton; moving image from voguing 3D animator Jacolby Satterwhite, experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer; and still visuals from artists like MacArthur Genius Grant-winning painter Nicole Eisenman, multidisciplinary artist Maia Cruz Palileo, and many more. In a separate area, music videos from the likes of New York cabaret legend Justin Vivian Bond, M. Lamar, and Alynda Segarra's Hurray for the Riff Raff will play in loop at designated listening/viewing stations. Finally, a vinyl installation will display texts from queer literary figures like novelist/critic/activist Sarah Schulman, The Star Side of Bird Hill author Naomi Jackson, and rising star poet Tommy Pico. An additional installation commissioned specifically for this event -The Queer|Art Community Portrait Project-will feature a series of recent portraits of artists and organizers who are part of the Queer|Art community, by photographer Eric McNatt.

As invitees mingle and take in the work of Queer|Art's vibrant and diverse community, DJ May Kwok will animate the evening with house and hip hop, setting the scene for a lively dance party at the end of the night. Multidisciplinary visual artist and voguing phenomenon Kia LaBeija performs live, and singer/soul artist Shea Diamond will perform an exclusive musical set. Comedian/performance artist Erin Markey will emcee the festivities with sharp wit and whacky charm. Queer|Art Executive Director and Founder Ira Sachs and Managing Director Travis Chamberlain will offer remarks.

Two awards will be granted during the celebratory event-each including a $10,000 prize-honoring two US-based LGBTQ artists whose work represents a significant contribution to queer culture, in areas of Sustained Achievement and Recent Work respectively. The Sustained Achievement award will be granted to Catherine Opie, the Los Angeles-based artist whose formally arresting photographs have, for more than three decades, explored multiform facets of queer American identity and community. Finalists for the Recent Work award, honoring specific projects, include artists working in a number of mediums: Yance Ford for his documentary Strong Island (2017); Reina Gossett for "The Personal Things" (2016), an animated short tribute to trans activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy; Kia LaBeija forher photographic Self Portraits (2016-2017); and Sarah Schulman for Conflict Is Not Abuse (2016).

Between its cutting-edge installations displaying a fantastic breadth of works by LGBTQ artists, its exhilarating live performances, and its unprecedented awards to two artists whose work demonstrates the indispensability of queer expression, Queer/Art/Prize will celebrate the rich recent history of queer art and its defiantly bright future, adding yet another dimension to Queer|Art's mission to support of LGBTQ art and artists across generations and disciplines.

Queer/Art/Prize will be held on Thursday, November 2 from 7:30pm-10pm at Hudson Mercantile, 500 W. 36th Street, New York. The event is invitation-only; for press inquiries see contact below.

Home Box Office, Inc. is the premium television programming subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. and the world's most successful pay TV service, providing the two television services - HBO and Cinemax - to approximately 134 million subscribers worldwide. The services offer the popular subscription video-on-demand products HBO On Demand and Cinemax On Demand, as well as HBO GO and MAX GO, HD feeds and multiplex channels. HBO NOW, the network's internet-only premium streaming service, provides audiences with instant access to HBO's acclaimed programming in the U.S. Internationally, HBO branded television networks, along with the subscription video-on-demand products HBO On Demand and HBO GO, bring HBO services to over 60 countries. HBO and Cinemax programming is sold into over 150 countries worldwide.

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 gives voice to 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 program of grants, prizes, and awards that will provide 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 pairs emerging and established artists in a year-long exchange, has propelled the careers of a new generation of creators. Queer|Art|Film, which recently celebrated its 100th screening, provides a space for invited artists to honor those who came before them and whose work continues to inspire them, further charting a uniquely queer cultural lineage through cinema to other artistic disciplines. Queer|Art|Awards kicks off this year with the Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant and the introduction of the Queer|Art|Prize. Over time, Queer|Art|Awards seeks to include a spectrum of support that will benefit artists working in a variety of fields and mediums, as well as broader categories of support that will survey LGBTQ culture as a whole.

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, Caden Manson, Everett Quinton, Geo Wyeth, Angela Dufresne, Nicole Eisenman, Avram Finkelstein, Chitra Ganesh, Pati Hertling, Jonathan Katz, Reina Gossett, Sasha Wortzel, Jess Barbagallo, Morgan Bassichis, Monstah Black, Yve Laris Cohen, iele paloumpis, Rebecca Patek, Justin Sayre, Colin Self, Justine Williams, Michael De Angelis, Jacolby Satterwhite, Rick Herron, and Hugh Ryan, among many others.

For more information, visit www.queer-art.org, or follow on Twitter: @queerartnyc, Instagram: @queerart and Facebook: @queerartnyc.