Queer Art Announces Winter/Spring Season

Queer|Art, the NYC incubator for LGBTQ artists, is pleased to announce the Winter/Spring 2018 season of Queer|Art|Film at IFC Center (323 Sixth Avenue at West 3rd St.), January 8-April 9. Curated by filmmakers Ira Sachs and Adam Baran, the season consists of four films not to be missed, presented by NYC performers and filmmakers, as well as a special presentation by the Queer Media Database Canada-Québec. Queer|Art|Film charts a uniquely queer cultural lineage through cinema to other artistic disciplines by inviting LGBTQ artists to present and discuss films that have inspired them. All screenings begin at 8pm.

MONDAY, JANUARY 8, 8:00PM
Split Britches presents A QUESTION OF SILENCE
(Marleen Gorris, 1982)

Can murder ever be justified? That's the central question at the heart of this controversial 1981 feminist classic by Marleen Gorris (Antonia's Line). A QUESTION OF SILENCE follows a psychiatrist (Edda Barends) as she interviews female strangers who mysteriously joined together to kill a male shop owner in a fit of spontaneous rage. The film is a favorite of legendary theater artists Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver, together known as Split Britches (who will be at LaMama ETC with their new show Unexploded Ordnances (UXO) January 4th-22nd). Shaw and Weaver write, "A QUESTION OF SILENCE has had huge impact on our work in terms of finding a queer feminist solution to issues and problems. We always refer to it at some point in our process." Rarely screened in theaters, Gorris' film should provoke a fascinating conversation in the wake of the recent surge of the #MeToo movement.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 8:00PM
Tiona Nekkia McClodden presents I DON'T WANT TO SLEEP ALONE
(Tsai Ming-liang, 2006)

I DON'T WANT TO SLEEP ALONE is a romantic drama by director Tsai Ming-liang (The River), one of the most celebrated Second New Wave film directors of Taiwanese cinema. To make this film, which follows the story of a young man who nurses an injured homeless man back to health after being brutally beaten, Ming-liang returned to his birthplace in Malaysia. Tonight's presenter, visual artist, filmmaker, and curator Tiona Nekkia McClodden says the film "rocked me to my core with the way it presented desire and loneliness". McClodden's work explores and critiques issues at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and social commentary. McClodden writes, "As a queer filmmaker I'm always looking to bend the narrative of my work in a way that challenges the form and structure of film... Ming-liang has taught me how to enter a narrative by leaving what comes before and after up to your imagination."

MONDAY, MARCH 12, 8:00PM
Mashuq Deen presents MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO
(Gus Van Sant, 1991)

After almost two decades of writing and revisions, Gus Van Sant shared the screenplay of MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO with Keanu Reeves, who then drove his motorcycle from Canada to Florida in order to hand-deliver the script to River Phoenix. Both actors would go on to star in this landmark film of the New Queer Cinema. The film follows Mike Waters (Phoenix), a narcoleptic street hustler, and his best friend Scott (Reeves) as they journey from Idaho to Italy in search of connection and personal discovery. For tonight's presenter, award-winning queer theater artist and resident playwright at New Dramatists Mashuq Deen, seeing the film for the first time was transformative. Deen writes, "It opened my mind both to how stories were told, as well as to what stories were told. I can remember vividly the final image of the fish swimming up river, and just staring at it trying to process what I had just seen, knowing I had been moved profoundly by something, and at the same time, not really sure what had happened to me." Screening on DCP from a 4K restoration, this iconic queer adventure movie is not to be missed!

MONDAY, APRIL 9, 8:00PM
Queer Media Database Canada-Québec presents IL ÉTAIT UNE FOIS DANS L'EST
(André Brassard, 1974)

A masterpiece of Québec and Queer World Cinema, Andre Brassard's extraordinary comedic-drama weaves together in Altman-esque fashion a diverse group of characters enmeshed in 1970s Montreal's queer nightlife, including drag queens, lesbian couples, and more. Based on the plays of Michel Tremblay, Il était... has been compared to The Boys in the Band, La Cage aux Folles, and Outrageous! but with a more gritty, social realist edge. Canadian queer film critic Thomas Waugh also calls the film "a pioneering manifesto of queer desire...as cruel and exhilarating, loud and tender, as when it was released." Il était... has almost never been screened in New York since it premiered at MoMA in 1975, so we're especially thrilled to partner with Queer Media Database Canada-Québec to present a brand-new restoration you won't want to miss.

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 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.

Website: www.queer-art.org
Twitter: @queerartnyc
Instagram: @queerart
Facebook: @queerartnyc

To post a comment, you must register and login.