2017 Pride Arts

A young law student, an unspeakable crime, and a past that refuses to stay buried.

Before Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working on the retrial defense of death-row convicted murderer and child molester Ricky Langley, she thinks her position is clear. The child of two lawyers, she is staunchly anti-death penalty. But the moment Ricky’s face flashes on the screen as she reviews old tapes, the moment she hears him speak of his crimes, she is overcome with the feeling of wanting him to die. Shocked by her reaction, she digs deeper and deeper into the case, realizing that despite their vastly different circumstances, something in his story is unsettlingly, uncannily familiar.

Crime, even the darkest and must unsayable acts, can happen to any one of us. As Alexandria pours over the facts of the murder, she finds herself thrust into the complicated narrative of Ricky’s childhood. And by examining the details of Ricky’s case, she is forced to face her own story, to unearth long-buried family secrets, to reckon with how her own past colors her view of Ricky’s crime.

But Alexandria is not alone in interpreting the crime through her own life. The judge, the jury foreman, even the victim’s mother and the defense attorney—all see what happened through their own lens of experience. The trial that took place was about Ricky’s past, but also the pasts of everyone touched by the murder. In Alexandria’s hands, THE FACT OF A BODY becomes a book not only about how the story of one crime was constructed—but about how we understand our past, the nature of forgiveness, and if a single narrative can ever really contain something as definitive as the truth.

Read the press release…

In celebration of the June 2nd start of Boston Pride Week, The Godfrey Hotel invites guests and locals to join them for the creation of a one-of-a-kind, LGBTQ-inspired art piece during the hotel’s Pride Week kick-off event. An after-party to the city’s Pride Flag Raising Ceremony, the event will feature a live art demonstration presented through a colorful dance process by local dancers and LGBTQ community members, signature cocktails, and live music.

The event will commence at 2:30pm, and the art demonstration will begin at 3:00pm.

The Godfrey Hotel Boston has commissioned Dylan Hurwitz, director of the Boston LGBTQIA Art Alliance, and a group of local dancers to create a custom piece of artwork at the hotel. The group will feature Boston’s own Neon Calypso!

To show their support for Boston Pride Week and June, National Pride Month, The Godfrey Boston invites guests and locals to celebrate the LGBTQ community, locally and nationally. The artwork created at the June 2 event will be on display in The Godfrey Boston’s lobby throughout the month of June and available for purchase through a month-long online auction powered by Flutter. Proceeds from the auction will be donated to Boston Pride.

Neon Calypso is a Boston based drag queen/entertainer with a background in theater arts and dance. Neon’s past work as a drag queen/entertainer has presented the struggles of women of color and queer women of color more specifically. Neon has done this by combining clips of spoken word and poetry by Ashlee Haze, Imani Cezanne, and Local Boston slam poet Porsha O, to music by artists such as Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliott and many more. Neon works with local theater company The Theater Offensive, whose mission is to present the diversity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lives in art, as well as Company One Theatre.

In 2012, author and journalist David France released the documentary How to Survive a Plague, the culmination of his decades-long coverage of the U.S. AIDS crisis. It won a New York Film Critics Circle Award and was an Oscar nominee. Last fall he published his book of the same title. In reviewing it for the New York Times, provocative political commentator Andrew Sullivan called it “the first and best history” of the courage behind the fight to end AIDS “and a reminder that if gay life and culture flourish for a thousand years, people will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’ ” In bringing them together, we anticipate a bracing discourse on politics, culture, history, and more.

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THE GUYS NEXT DOOR is an intimate portrait of a real “Modern Family:” Meet Erik and Sandro, a gay married couple whose friend Rachel is a surrogate for their two daughters. Rachel, who is in her 40s, is married to Tony and they have three children. Together, they form a unique extended family.

Spanning over three years, this lyrical documentary tackles some of the most pertinent issues of our time: gay marriage and parenting, surrogacy as a path to having children, and the extension and redefinition of what it means to be “an American family.” Elegantly shot and edited, and told with candor and humor, THE GUYS NEXT DOOR is an inspiring story of family, friendship and gay rights.

Download the film’s press kit for details…

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Join art historian Andrew Lear, a renowned expert in gender and sexuality in western art, for an unconventional tour of the MFA. On this fun and informative 2-hour journey at the museum, you will discover:
– the male/male couple that were ancient Athens’ Uncle Sam,
– the god Priapus and what he did with his huge appendage,
– painter John Singer Sargent’s secret obsession, and
– an intersex figure we bet you’ve never noticed in a famous impressionist canvas!

For most of its history, Boston was the most Puritan of American cities, the city where things were “banned in Boston.” Yet a surprising amount of LGBT-themed art made its way into the MFA’s collections. Learn about the MFA’s hidden gay side, from its rich collections of ancient Greek homoerotica to Lesbian scenes in classical Chinese painting to a genderqueer figure in a famous post-Impressionist canvas.

Rosso Fiorentino (Giovanni Battista di Jacopo), The Dead Christ with Angels (detail), about 1524–27. Oil on panel. Charles Potter Kling Fund.

SJ Sindu is a queer writer of color whose new novel, Marriage of a Thousand Lies, describes a couple who marry to satisfy their conservative Sri Lankan families while each pursues their own relationships.

The Boston LGBTQIA Artist Alliance’s Summer 2017 Exhibition will be an exploration and celebration of the cultural value and significance of the arts in the current political climate, as well as the determination and resilience of LGBTQIA artists who have continued making work over the years despite hostile conditions.

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