Ankon Mitra, Inhabiting a Fractal Pyramid, AiOP 2023: DRESS, courtesy of the artist
Join Art in Odd Places for its eighteenth annual outdoor public visual and performance art festival, taking place on select blocks each day along 14th Street in Manhattan from October 13-15, with the Paper Dress Ball on October 14th.
Artists will unfold their creative interpretation of the theme ‘DRESS’ in the form of garments, textile, fashion design, costume, performance, sculpture and installation.
Image courtesy Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Photo credit: Joaquin Trujillo
Join LMCC and Allies in Artsfor a full day of artist talks, performances, readings and a special DJ set to celebrate ANTI•VENOM, an exhibition that brings together seven multidisciplinary artists to ask: How do we affirm our humanity in the face of complex harm? In this luminous exhibition of videos the artists face a troubled reality and transform it, directing our gaze towards radiant visions of the future. Each of the programs featured offer a microdose towards collective healing.
Marianne Boesky Gallery is pleased to present Purple Prose: Queer Illiteralism & a Flowering Cacophony, a summer group featuring works by Felix Beaudry, John Burtle, David Gilbert, Borna Sammak, Marisa Takal, and Michaela Yearwood-Dan. Taking its title from the literary term for an overly embellished writing style, Purple Prose is a queer celebration of the fanciful, the excessive, the transgressive. Organized by Kory Trolio, the exhibition embraces the artist’s rambling plight and the tortuous journey of queer being, foregrounding playful narratives of evolving selves, opening June 7th.
George Platt Lynes (American, 1907-1955), Lew Christiensen, William Dollar & Daphne Vane performing Orpheus and Eurydice, c. 1936, Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
Keith de Lellis Gallery is pleased to present a group exhibition of photographs that explore the history of dance in the 20th century, with works spanning from the 1920s to the 1960s. The poses, expressions, and moments formed in these photographs were also conceptualized through a phrase of dance, a surrealist notion that holds visually throughout these works. Together and separately, both dance and photography are ever-changing. ‘Focus on Dance’ to open on June 14th.
From our archives, Harlem Pride at Casa Frela Gallery, 2010
Beginning in 1969 with a ‘Gay Power’ demonstration of about 500 people in Washington Square Park, the NYC Pride March is now considered to be the largest Pride Parade in the United States. In 2019, celebrating Stonewall 50/WorldPride NYC, approximately five-million people took part over the final weekend of the celebrations, with about four-million in attendance at the parade.
Join NYC Pride 2023 during the month of June as it celebrates its legacy and future projects like the 2024 opening of the LGBTQ Visitor Center and The American LGBTQ+ Museum with an anticipated opening in 2026.
Below are just a few events during #NYCPride on our list.
The annual New York City Pride March will take place on March 25th beginning at Noon. This years Grand Marshals will include Billy Porter, Yasmin Benoit, AC Dumlao, Hope Giselle and Randolph ‘Randy’ Wicker. Angelica Ross will return for a third year as co-host on the broadcast special on ABC-7.
The New York Historical Society will be adding more than 70,000 square-feet to its historic building along Central Park’s Upper West Side. This five-story addition will include additional classrooms, galleries, study areas ~ and the the first museum in New York dedicated to LGBTQ+ history and culture, with an anticipated completion date near 2026.
The American LGBTQ+ Museum will be located within a 4,000 square foot gallery space and occupy a full floor. Exciting programming to include rotating exhibitions and a ‘virtual museum’ in addition to its permanent exhibitions.
This June, in solidarity with their LGBTQI+ community members, Acacia Network and its affiliate Loisaida Inc. will present a month-long arts series celebrating Pride Month.
Curated by queer artist Gabriel G Torres, the Loisaida is Proud series kicks off on Thursday, June 8th at 6 PM with an opening reception for the exhibition “We are all born naked, the rest is drag,” showcasing more than 15 years of never-before exhibited work by lens-based artist Ernesto Linnemann. The exhibition will run through Friday, June 23rd.
For those of us with the good fortune to have a place to hang our things, a closet is a magical container, a collection of materials, arranged by each of us that at a glance can reveal our values, desires, cares, and even our deepest secrets. Time itself is frozen inside a closet in contrasting meters and timelines, fragmented in things accumulated and arranged in juxtaposed order, stacked and aligned, quickly thrown or casually dropped there to be taken care of later. The scene is set, and the narratives that blossom come alive whenever the doors swing open, giving us a reading, a reminder, an understanding of who we are, where we have been, secrets, and dreams we hold. Boxes concealing our heart’s contours, scribbled messages scratched on folded notes and cards, photos, records, files, all the stuff worth saving for the reason that each thing signifies, all these choices contained in the holding space, the closet.
The Caffe Cino, 31 Cornelia Street. Image courtesy LGBT Historic Sites Project.
On March 16 at 6pm, the Jefferson Market Library and archivist and Caffe Cino actress Magie Dominic will share documentation and stories about the landmark space, Caffe Cino, presenting the first program devoted to the women playwrights who produced their work at the Caffe. This small theater, located at 31 Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village, opened in 1958, and produced plays and theater work until its closing in 1968. Magie Dominic was one of the original performers at the Caffe, and like many, worked in a multiple of capacities. During its 10 year existence, Joe Cino, owner of the Caffe Cino, produced the work of hundreds of new writers, many of whom went on to win a multitude of awards -including Pulitzers, Tonys, Academy Awards and Obies.
The Art Students League is proud to announce We Fancy, an exhibition that examines the work and legacy of over 30 LGBTQIA+ artists who have studied or taught at the League throughout its history and have played a unique role in laying the foundation for the acceptance and popularization of queer aesthetics. The exhibition includes works by well-known League artists including Judith Godwin, Deborah Kass, Robert Rauschenberg, Emilio Sanchez, Chitra Ganesh, and Cy Twombly, as well as work by artists including Bernard Perlin, William Behnken, Doug Safranek, Dominique Medici, and Coco Dolle. The exhibition will also feature a new commissioned work by Chicago-based Ajmal Millar who will create a site-specific installation at the League. We Fancy is organized by Guest Curator, Eric Shiner and is on view at the League’s Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery October 27–November 27, 2022.
On Tuesday, October 25, 2022, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) held a public hearing on the proposed designation of The Lesbian Herstory Archives at 484 Fourteenth Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The proposed individual landmark is culturally significant as the home since 1991 of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, the nation’s oldest and largest collection of lesbian-related historical material.
On November 22, 2022, LPC voted to approve The Lesbian Herstory Archives, located at 484 Fourteenth Street in Brooklyn, as an Individual Historic Landmark. It is the first individual landmark in Brooklyn designated for its LGBTQ+ associations.
“I am delighted Commission has designated the home of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, an important community space and a nationally important collection of LGBTQ+ historical materials,” said Landmarks Preservation Commission Chair Sarah Carroll. “For over 30 years, the building has been the site of the Archives’ essential role in preserving and telling the stories of a mostly unseen community of women, including many who have contributed to America’s cultural, political, and social history. This designation draws attention to the importance of the Lesbian Herstory Archives to New York City and the country’s history and to LGBTQ+ communities.”
There are 1,400 Individual Landmarks throughout this City.
LGDR is pleased to present From Body to Horizon, an exhibition of paintings by queer artists who have developed specific approaches to color through depictions of the interior and exterior landscapes of their own lives. Occupying the first floor of the gallery’s 909 Madison Avenue location, the show will feature works by Etel Adnan, David Hockney, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, and Doron Langberg. Pushing beyond the conventions of naturalism, each of these four artists has developed a signature approach to color as a language—a means for reflecting upon topographies both figural and panoramic, domestic and picturesque, intimate and universal. From Body to Horizon will open on October 20.
Interior, view along bar, camera facing northeast. Photograph by Christopher D. Brazee, courtesy of New York State Historic Preservation Office
The Julius’ Bar Building located at 186-188 Waverly Place and 159 West 10th Street, held public testimony at the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission Zoom meeting on November 15, 2022. The iconic building moved forward in its final step, with two of the many speakers in support of Landmarking, Andrew Berman and Randy Wicker, On Tuesday, December 6, 2022, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously designated the Julius’ Bar Building to be a NYC Individual Landmark. Commissioner Michael Goldblum spoke eloquently about the importance of “holding on to a time in New York‘ when Greenwich Village looked quite different than it does today, and the importance of focusing on the fact that “it’s all about the history.”
Located at West 10th Street and Waverly Place in the Greenwich Village Historic District, the building housing Julius’ Bar is one of the city’s most significant LGBTQ+ history sites. In 1966, three years before the Stonewall Rebellion, members of the Mattachine Society sat at Julius’ bar, ordered drinks, announced they were gay, and were refused service. At a time of rampant discrimination—when few LGBTQ+ people lived openly, and gay New Yorkers were being targeted for arrest in city bars—this courageous act and other events at Julius’ led to major progress in fighting discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and enabling them to gather openly in public places.
June 28th marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in 1969, when the New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, leading to protests and violent clashes outside the Christopher Street establishment ~ and the beginning of the gay rights movement. Celebrating Stonewall 50, beginning in March, and leading up to the World Pride NYC March: Stonewall 50 in June, here are a few suggestions. We will continue to add events as the year progresses.
Adam Rolston, I Am Out Therefore I Am, 1989. Crack and peel sticker, 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. Courtesy the artist
As part of Stonewall 50, NYU/Grey Art Gallery and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art announced a major exhibition, examining the impact of the LGBTQ movement on visual arts and culture this April, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprisings.
Photo credit, Lola Flash. Image courtesy of X Gallery
X Gallery and EnFoco join together to present Queer Eye, A photographic exhibition celebrating LGBTQ Pride month featuring the work of Lola Flash, Lisa DuBois, Oscar J Rivera and Gabriel Garcia Roman. Each of the photo artists expresses their creativity and personal vision through their art in this multifaceted view of the LGBTQ world.