Queer Artist Archives: Then and Now

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Three dance artists, Ishmael Houston-Jones, John Kelly, and Richard Move, are beginning the journey of archiving their work. These three nationally recognized performing arts innovators, participating with eight other artists as part of the part of the Pick Up Performance Co.’s LGBTQ+ Artists Archive Project, will discuss art and life and being queer in a 35+ year roller-coaster context of public social agendas. 

The LGBTQ+ Artists Archive Project is a response to the challenges of preservation that have plagued these avant-garde artists—in the past, artists have had their art, archives, and material thrown away after they die, their stories, work, and legacies forgotten. The caretaking of individual artists’ legacies is often left to prohibitive costs and/or ill-equipped friends and family members with devastating results, erasing their contributions leaving a selective history. This project is a new model for combining resources to facilitate the creation of artist-led archives.

Photo Credit: Ismael Huston-Jones, photo by Mark Poucher; John Kelly, photo by  Steven Menendez; Richard Move, photo by Patrick McMullan

SEATING POLICY | Programs are free and open to all, but registration is requested. Check-in line forms 45 minutes before the advertised start time. Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. Five minutes before the advertised start time, all seats are released, regardless of registration, to our patrons in the stand-by line. If you arrive after the program starts, you will be seated at the discretion of our front-of-house staff.

STANDBY LINE | If registration is sold out or has ended, do not fret! We welcome you to come to the Library regardless of registration status and wait in our standby line, which forms 45 minutes before the advertised start time. Five minutes before the program starts, all remaining seats are released. While this is not guaranteed, we will do our best to get you into any of our programs.

ASSISTIVE LISTENING AND ASL | ASL interpretation and real-time (CART) captioning available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing accessibility@nypl.org.

BRUNO WALTER POLICY | Please note that any unoccupied seat will be released five minutes before the show begins and holding seats for anyone beyond that is prohibited. There is no food or drink allowed inside the venue.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING | Programs may be photographed and recorded by and at the discretion of the Library for the Performing Arts and will post signs indicating as such. If you would prefer your image not be captured, please let us know and we can seat you accordingly. Attending any program indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any and all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS | Please send all press inquiries to Alex Teplitzky at alexteplitzky@nypl.org. Please note that all recording, including professional video recordings, are prohibited without expressed consent from the Library.