Queer as Art

Admission is free.

If anyone knows about turning their life into art, it’s the members of QueerWise, Los Angeles’s collective of writers over fifty years old. In “Queer As Art,” the spoken word artists will explore their identity of queerness as the manifold labels seem to change from day to day. These queer folk are decidedly “queer as art”, having artfully spent decades of personal excavation and discovery.

This performance is held in conjunction with the closing of The Classical Nude and the Making of Queer History at the ONE Gallery. Organized by the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art and curated by scholar Jonathan David Katz, The Classical Nude and the Making of Queer History investigates how the visual iconography of Greco-Roman culture has acted as a recurring touchstone in the development of same-sex representation.

About QueerWise

QueerWise is a writing collective and spoken word performance group comprised of out lesbian and gay seniors living in Los Angeles. The artistic troupe has gained a reputation for their literary merit while capturing the zeitgeist of their generation.

Created in 2011, under the instruction and direction of Michael Kearns, QueerWise has created several pieces that have been performed throughout the Los Angeles area. “Everyone carries a valuable story that deserves to be witnessed,” Kearns says. He has presented theatricalized storytelling events since the early days of the AIDS crisis. “Seniors have often been made invisible—especially in the LGBT community, and their voices need to be heard.”

Find more about QueerWise on the group’s Facebook page here.