I’ll Be Your Mirror:

An evening preview for MR/QD’s city-wide June Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Queer Art

Date: April 3, 2024, 5-8PM
Location: Bernath Auditorium, Undergraduate Library, Wayne State University
Address: 5155 Gullen Mall, Detroit MI

MIGHTY REAL / QUEER DETROIT

Artwork: Well, Come On!, 2023, Kasper Ray O’Brien, graphite on paper, 31.5 x 41.5 in

Untitled, 1970, Brenda Goodman, oil and pastel on paper, 40 1/8 x 25 ¾ in, Gift of the Estate of John & Christine Piet, 2023, Courtesy of the University Art Collection, WSU

Wayne State University (WSU) Center for Gender and Sexuality, WSU Galleries & Art Collection, and Mighty Real / Queer Detroit (MR/QD) are pleased to I’ll Be Your Mirror: An evening preview for MR/QD’s city-wide June Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Queer Art on April 3, 5-8PM at the Bernath Auditorium, Undergraduate Library, Wayne State University.

The community at WSU and MR/QD come together during WSU’s pride week to illuminate the rich history and current landscape of queer art in Detroit. Through diverse and enriching topics, the event will introduce the upcoming exhibition I’ll Be Your Mirror: Reflections of the Contemporary Queer that will be held at the Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, WSU, along with 12 Detroit venues and galleries in June. Exhibition programming in June will feature 170 artists, over 800 works, film screenings, artist talks, live performances, panels, and poetry readings.  

In addition, the evening’s event will include an exhibition of works from the University Art Collection, a reading from Marc Arthur’s performance Memories of a Supernatural AIDS Crisis, a preview of I’ll Be You Mirror: Reflection of the Contemporary Queer, and a panel discussion featuring several of the exhibiting artists and members from the Detroit community.

Event Schedule:

University Art Collection Exhibition Reception: 5-6PM

  • Works from the collection that embrace diversity, identity, and culture, created by artists connected to Detroit’s LGBTQIA+ community.

  • The exhibition will include work by Tony Bluestone, Carl Demeulenaere, John Corbin, Gary Elenko, Ed Fraga, Brenda Goodman, John Hunter, Paul Kotula, James Stephens, Jon Strand, Lois Teicher, and Sam Wagstaff.

Mighty Real / Queer Detroit introduction: 6-6:15PM

  • patrick burton (Creative Director / Curator, Mighty Real/Queer Detroit)

  • Simone Chess (Director, Center for Gender and Sexuality (CGS), and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, Associate Professor of English, WSU)

Memories of a Supernatural AIDS Crisis: 6:15-6:30PM

Written and directed by Marc Arthur (Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre & Dance, WSU) and performed by Notorious Pink Flowers and Marc Arthur.

In this queer sci-fi drama set one hundred years in the future, Detroit is the last bastion of human life on Earth. Pandrion and Xylophlactis are in love and embark on a quest to choreograph forgotten memories of AIDS activism when they discover that HIV produces supernatural abilities.  

This performance will be staged on June 29th as part of MRQD in Wayne State’s new Hilberry Gateway Theatre. The project is supported by a Creative/Research grant from Wayne State University’s College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts.

Panel Discussion: 6:30-7:30, with Q & A to follow

  • patrick burton (Creative Director / Curator, Mighty Real/Queer Detroit)

  • Andrew Jordan (Mighty Real/Queer Detroit Programming and General Organizer)

  • Marc Arthur (Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre & Dance, WSU)

  • Tylonn J. Sawyer, Detroit Artist and Professor of Art, Oakland Community College

  • Emilia Nawrocki (WSU BFA ‘20), Detroit Artist

  • Kasper Ray O’Brien, Detroit Artist

  • Bre’Ann White, Detroit Artist and Photographer

Artwork: Pink Keren Series, 2019, Bre’Ann White, photography, 11 x 17 inches

From left to right: Marc Arthur, Tylonn J. Sawyer, Emilia Nawrocki, Kasper Ray O’Brien, Bre’Ann White

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

  • Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre & Dance, WSU

    Marc Arthur is an artist and scholar whose current body of work considers political encounters around the AIDS pandemic. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre & Dance at Wayne State University and completed his PhD in Performance Studies from New York University (2019). He was also a Postdoctoral Fellow in Arts-based Social Justice Research and Practice at the University of Michigan (2019 – 2022) where he studied community-based performance approaches for decreasing HIV stigma and oppression. He is currently working on his first book project entitled, The Art of Crisis: Supernatural Performance in the Time of AIDS, which investigates how artists embrace supernatural metaphors, which are rooted in fear and discrimination, to effect a transformation of conventional representation, management, and memorialization of AIDS.

    Arthur’s writing and criticism has appeared in edited volumes and journals including Theatre Journal, TDR: The Drama Review, Bomb Magazine, and Canadian Theatre Review, as well as numerous edited collections. He has also written extensively for Performa Magazine, where he was editor (2015 – 2017). At Performa he also served as the Head of Research and Archives (2011 – 2017) where he organized touring exhibitions, curated programs, led interdisciplinary research projects with a wide range of artists, and spearheaded the acquisition of the Performa collection by NYU’s Fales Library.

    His performance work has been presented at theatres and galleries internationally, including the Martha Graham Dance Theater, La MaMa E.T.C., Dixon Place, The Living Theater, Movement Research at Judson Church, the Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance, the Wild Project, University Settlement, and Chashama in New York City; New Langton Arts and David Cunningham Projects, San Francisco; Moyse Theatre at McGill University, Montreal; Xavier Hufkens Gallery, Brussels; the Emily Harvey Foundation, Venice; Universität der Künste, Berlin; and FRISE, Hamburg.

  • Detroit Artist and Professor of Art, Oakland Community College

    Tylonn J. Sawyer is an American multidisciplinary artist educator and curator. Trained in the figurative arts based practices Sawyer’s work juxtaposes themes of identity–both individual and collective–with investigations of race and history in popular culture.

    Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Sawyer has been included in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad including the Venice Biennale, Italy; Texas A & M University, Texas; The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, The Detroit Institute of Art, Michigan; Heron Arts, San Francisco; Kravets/Wehby Gallery, Rush Arts & The New York Academy of Art, New York, amongst others.

    Sawyer holds an MFA in painting from the New York Academy of Art: Graduate School of Figurative Art program and a Bachelor of BFA (drawing & painting) from Eastern Michigan University. Sawyer currently lives and works in Detroit, Michigan, USA.

  • Detroit Artist

    Emilia Nawrocki is a figurative, multidisciplinary artist born in the suburbs of Metro-Detroit to catholic Polish immigrant parents, she earned her BFA at Wayne State University and is currently based in Detroit, Michigan. Emilia creates work using her own likeness to explore the facets of her identity, religious trauma, human evolution, and feminist beliefs through references to mythology and storytelling. Her work includes pixelated abstraction as a form of digitizing the traditional medium of oil painting and as an expression of human evolution of how the brain perceives and interprets images. Emilia’s work has been published in Runner Magazine and featured at multiple galleries in Metro-Detroit and beyond.

  • Detroit Artist

    Kasper Ray O’Brien (b. 1992, Southgate, MI) received his BFA from the College for Creative Studies. Selected exhibitions include Hatch Art (Hamtramck, MI), Simone DeSousa Gallery (Detroit, MI), and AICAD/NYSRP (Brooklyn, NY). He currently lives and works in Detroit, MI.

  • Detroit Artist and Photographer

    SINCE 2010, BRE’ANN WHITE HAS CURATED STUNNING PHOTOGRAPHS AND BRANDING MATERIALS FOR ORGANIZATIONS WORLDWIDE. THE DETROIT-BRED FASHION AND PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER IS KNOWN FOR CREATING AND CULTIVATING STRIKING IMAGES THAT DRAW YOU INTO THE SUBJECT’S WORLD. THROUGHOUT WHITE’S WORK PORTFOLIO, THERE IS A CONSISTENT LAYER OF AUTHENTICITY AND IMAGINATION.

    WITH CONFIDENCE IN HER WORK AND HER VISION, BRE’ANN’S CAREER HAS ALLOWED HER TO SHOWCASE HER WORK AND EXPLORE EXHIBITION OPPORTUNITIES TO CONNECT TO A BROADER AUDIENCE. HER WORK HAS BEEN SHOT AROUND THE WORLD INCLUDING NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES, AFRICA, SOUTHERN FRANCE, ITALY, AND AUSTRALIA. BRE’ANN WHITE HAS EXHIBITED WORK IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM OF PHIL, ARABIC NATIONAL MUSEUM, PLAYGROUND DETROIT, UICA OF GRAND RAPIDS, N’NAMDI CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, NORWEST GALLERY, AND SAVEARTSPACE AND HAS BEEN FEATURED IN NATIONAL PUBLICATIONS SUCH AS TEEN VOGUE, HOUR MAGAZINE, ESSENCE, NETFLIX AND HARPER BAZAAR.

Embellished Study: Man on a Black Horse, Tylonn J. Sawyer, charcoal, pastel, and glitter on paper, 90 x 72 inches

Amelia and Emilia in Bed (Ode to Art Historians), 2021, Emilia Nawrocki, oil on canvas, 24 x 48 inches