Artist Joey Brock

RICH LOPEZ | Staff writer
Rich@DallasVoice.com

In any given weekend night on The Strip, a street preacher may gather like-minded folks to spew anti-gay sentiments supposedly rooted in the Bible. Queer folks may either ignore or engage them, depending on the mood they’re in (or number of drinks they’ve had). All that the preacher does is deliver a message of hate and prejudice targeting the community, claiming the message comes from God.

But what if queer people and identities were all in God’s plan?

If you believe in God, that is. 

This is the question and purpose behind Zona 7 Gallery’s latest exhibit, Heavenly Bodies, Earthly Wounds, featuring works by gay Dallas artist Joey Brock. The Fort Worth gallery situated in Sundance Square opened the exhibit during Pride Month, and it continues through August. And with this exhibit is a project Brock has had in mind for some time. 

“I think it’s even more important now to speak out, especially in light of the religious groups that have been infiltrating our neighborhood shaming and spewing their othering language in our safe spaces.  This makes me angry,” Brock first said in an email.

So in Heavenly Bodies, he flips the script. 

“The Christian doctrine casts queer bodies as sinful or unnatural. But this asks ‘What if othering was divine all along?’” he explained. “I am looking at queer experience not as a deviation but stemming from grace.”

Originally, the show was to be centered on LGBTQ+ stories through original art, but the timeline didn’t quite work with Brock. With this show in the back of mind, it was both the perfect time and opportunity. 

“I’ve been holding on to these images for years to do this show. I have been wanting to address religious doctrine in my way,” he said. 

Brock isn’t the religious type, but religion wasn’t far away in his upbringing: His grandfather was a Primitive Baptist minister. While he’s more spiritual than religious, he does have an understanding of the teachings of Jesus. 

“There are so many references in the Bible for other ‘sins,’ but everyone today seems to hyperfocus on the queer aspects,” the artist said. “Growing up gay in Texas and during the AIDS crisis, we were always demonized. So that plays into some of these portraits.” 

Brock takes religious iconography and gives it a queer spin. The exhibition features images of cherubs, angels and even God through a diverse mix of models. The artist specifically created a landscape of queer BIPOC bodies.

“These queer bodies are here to challenge the notion of what it is to truly be godlike,” he said.

“I’m taking the shame put on us and reclaiming the embodiment of spirituality as our own.” 

To add to his message, the subjects all present androgynous and almost genderless. Brock reasons that kindness is genderless, spirit is genderless; thus, spirituality and even religion even should be genderless as well. 

Additional pieces in the exhibition that have been shown before add to the show’s themes.

All the works lean into the duality of shame and overcoming that shame. 

“I really wanted to give a safe space for this imagery and for people seeing it,” he said.  ■

Brock will have an Artist’s Talk on July 12 at 3 p.m. at Zona 7 Gallery, 404 Houston St. in Fort Worth. JoeyBrockArt.com. Heavenly Bodies, Earthly Wounds runs through Aug. 10.

Dallas Contemporary’s 4th Annual Pride Panel has been officially announced. In its DC Monthly email on Tuesday, the arts space included the event hosted in partnership with Dallas Hope Charities. The event will spotlight “how organizations are reclaiming and advancing LGBTQIA+ hope” and will take place at the gallery on June 27 at 6 p.m.

The night begins with Meet + Mingle featuring a tour of DC’s current exhibitions, a vendor market, a resource fair with local LGBTQ organizations, interactive activities curated by DC and a sweet treat pop-up by Gelato La Boca.

The panel will discuss advocacy in today’s world and begins at 6:30 p.m. Panelists include Dr. Steffanie Grossman of Dakota Consulting & Therapy and Javier Enriquez of Dallas Social Queer Organization.

Grossman (she/her) is a Licensed Psychologist and Certified Eating Disorders Specialist and the owner of Dakota Consulting & Therapy where she provides affirming care for clients navigating eating disorders, self-esteem challenges, and LGBTQ-related issues by creating safe, empowering spaces. She offers both therapy and gender-affirming assessments to help individuals live authentically.

Javier Enriquez (he/him) is the Founder and President of Dallas Social Queer Organization (DSQO), a volunteer-led nonprofit creating affirming spaces for LGBTQ adults through community support. A dedicated organizer and advocate, Enriquez has developed educational and social programs addressing HIV stigma at Resource Center. Through DSQO, he builds inclusive, accessible programming that uplifts and unites the local queer community.

The night concludes with some social networking along with a goodie bag upon exit.The event is free and open to the public but registration is required.

Currently on display at DC are the exhibitions You Stretched Diagonally Across It: Contemporary Tapestry, pictured, featuring works by 30 artists that suggest tapestry as an active point for unresolved inquiries into the human condition, and EJ Hill + Martin Gonzales: Velvet Faith, a meditation on self-determination, joy and liberation—liberation from the conventions of institutionalized art-making and from the constraints of market-driven practice. Opening on June 21 is the special exhibition Masahiro LaMarsh: Anticlastic, featuring custom-made grillz by the New York-based jeweler who uses traditional metalsmithing techniques to render highly-intricate, often bejeweled pieces worn over the teeth.

–Rich Lopez

Shrinking Ballot

RICH LOPEZ | Staff writer
Rich@DallasVoice.com

In late April, Southern Methodist University’s Meadows Museum announced local artist Erica Felicella as the recipient of its 2025 Moss/Chumley North Texas Artist Award. Given out annually, the award recognizes an outstanding artist who has not only a tenure of work going back at least 10 years but who has also has served as an advocate for visual arts.

Felicella’s own work includes photography and performance art, and she has served as a curator, producer and program developer for other artists. 

Felicella is heading into Pride Month with a new performance piece slated for the end of June, so a lot’s been on her mind in recent days. And the news she had won the Moss/Chumley Award certainly had an effect on her.

“When I got the call, I cried. I have such respect for people who have come before me,” she said. “This particular award covers the full expanse of my practice. It’s heavily rooted in my own production of work but also working with the community.

“It’s really such a special honor and it feels rewarding that I’ve been doing the work.”

Felicella came to Dallas 20 years ago from the New England area. In her time here, she’s shown her own multidisciplinary arts and has also played crucial parts in area initiatives such as Art Conspiracy, Aurora and the Dallas Public Library Culture Pass.  

“I arrived in North Texas as a young, starry-eyed artist. I have always believed in dedicating oneself to expanding one’s horizons and giving back whenever possible and have sought to balance personal expression with community-focused work,” Felicella stated in the press release for the award announcement.

“To be recognized for both these aspects of my artistic practice in a single award is truly remarkable. North Texas offers vibrant opportunities for growth, and it fills me with great joy to spread my wings here while contributing to this community.”

Originally trained in photography, Felicella’s repertoire has expanded beyond to include performance, endurance art, site-specific installations and new media. Across these differing media and art forms, she explores collective human experiences through personal and resonant themes like memory, grief and vulnerability.

But she addresses social and political themes in her work, as well.

North Texas has been a place where her art has thrived, and, over the years, she’s seen the open doors the area open its arms to other artists, too.

“To have watched it have this major resurgence and flourish over the last 20-plus years is a wild ride,” she said. “I love that there are opportunities to do all kinds of art here because it’s accessible to so many. You can’t ask for more than that.”

She may have come to Dallas starry-eyed, but today, Felicella is a pillar of the North Texas arts community. She has found herself to be a go-to for up-and-coming artists. But that hasn’t stopped her own artistic voyage. 

“Any artist who wants to come to me, I always say ‘yes.’ My door is always open,” she said. “It’s weird, since it’s started happening where people want my help and opinion. It humbles the heck out of me that there are generations behind me who want my advice. And yet, I’m also still going to people as well for the same.”

Felicella has also seen the evolution of art in North Texas — particularly when it comes to technology and new media. She’s been working with AURORA, a Dallas-based public arts organization that works at the intersection of art, technology and community.

The AURORA Biennial event — a theme-based evening arts festival last staged in 2024 at Dallas City Hall — and its ongoing AURORA Expanded initiatives are central to AURORA’s mission of positioning Dallas as an international hub for art and technological innovation. Felicella has been on the forefront of cultivating and curating new media and its artists through AURORA.

She has found how North Texas has embraced the art form through the events as well as area universities’ curriculums available. 

“There are spaces for new media and Dallas/Fort Worth is a place to be reckoned with for such,” she said. 

In a recent series of self-portraits, Felicella crafted a dozen images that speak to mental health and well-being, a theme often found in her work. “I really believe in touching and and having this dialogue about mental health. But then I pepper in images of a different message,” she said. 

In one image, she is “wrapped” in the American flag outside the state capital that spoke to voter inequality and voting access. A recent piece was focused on both the lesbian and trans communities. For June, she will premiere a new piece that fits in with Pride while also speaking out against today’s erasure of queer people. 

“I’m doing this performance art piece at the end of June at the Keijsers Koning Gallery about the National Park Service and their removal of the T and Q off the website of the Stonewall National Monument, which is infuriating,” Felicella said. “Part of the money that came with the award helps fund this. My work is very abstract, but it’s done with purpose. You can try to erase us all you want, but we will be here.” 

Felicella’s performance art piece is part of These Letters Don’t Run — LGBTQ exhibtion at the gallery which runs through June 28. The exhibition also features works by Quinci Baker, Jimi Dams, Jack Early, Demian DineYazhi, Barbara Hamer, Ted Kincaid and Molly Vaughan. 

To learn more about the artist, visit EricaFelicella.com or the show, visit KeijsersKoning.com.

………………….

PRIDE ON DISPLAY

If you’re seeking some Pride-infused art in the DFW area, there is no shortage this June. Discover various art events and exhibitions showcasing queer artists during Pride month and beyond June. Immerse yourself in diverse art forms by both local and globally recognized LGBTQ creators.

• Celebrating 40 years of Richard Avedon’s In the American West, The Carter is presenting 40 works from the series accompanied by behind-the-scenes archival material of Avedon’s acclaimed portraits. Commissioned in 1979 by the Carter, the bisexual Avedon spent six years traveling to 189 towns across 17 states documenting his view of the American West through a series of portraits of people he encountered along the way. CarterMuseum.org. 
• Queer Dallas artist Armando Sebastian presents ELLES — All About Them: A Celebration of Fluidity, Identity and Visibility for Pride. The exhibit runs June 4-29 in the Ruth Andres Gallery at the Goldmark Cultural Center. “The show honors Latinx queer nonbinary, genderqueer, genderfluid, agender and all trans identities that refuse to be boxed in. It’s a tribute to those whose existence challenges outdated norms and opens up new languages for being seen, felt and understood,” he said on his socials. GoldmarkCulturalCenter.org. 
• These Letters Don’t Run — LGBTQ runs through June 28 at Keijsers Koning Gallery. Featuring a collective of artists, this exhibit centers on the National Park Service (NPS) removal of references to “transgender” and “queer” individuals from the official website of the Stonewall National Monument, altering the acronym “LGBTQ” to “LGB.” In response, this exhibition stands as a testament to the resilience and vibrancy of the whole community through personal narratives, artistic expressions and historical accounts. The gallery describes this as “not only a remembrance but also a declaration: We see you, we hear you, and we stand with you.” KeijsersKoning.com.
• Meow Wolf in Grapevine filled its calendar to the brim with some big Pride-specific events for June. It all begins on June 3 and 17 with Drag Bingo Bonanza Extravaganza for all ages. Sip on cocktails, watch a few drag queens and yell “Bingo!” when that final number hits. On June 5 and 19, MW’s Adulti-Verse Pride Nights where guests can explore The Real Unreal after hours, with craft cocktails, immersive soundscapes and a curated lineup of drag queens, DJs and more. Adulti-Verse is for 21 and older only. On June 12, MW hosts Neon Nites: Kings, Queens and Inbetweens for 21 and older. The standalone Pride event will be hosted by Buck Wylde with DJ Jess Baroness on the tables. The event features pop-up acts, live music and some interdimensional surprises. On June 25, The Artist Talk: Voices of Pride welcomes artists Will Heron and Leticia Gomez discussing their creativity while expressing queerness in their works. Finally, MW will host Rainbow Rhythms: A Family Pride Night for all ages. A live DJ sets the tone as guests partake in hands-on artmaking in an affirming space and then engaged with area organizations supporting LGTBQ communities. MeowWolf.com/visit/Grapevine.
• Alex Da Corte: The Whale is the first museum exhibition to survey the gay artist’s long relationship with painting. The exhibition focuses on the past decade of his career with more than 40 paintings, drawings and multimedia pieces that puts painting as a performative act. Through Sept. 7 at The Modern in Fort Worth. TheModern.org. — Rich Lopez
  

What began as a look into the life of artist Edward Brezinski becomes something else altogether in the documentary Make Me Famous. The independent production also gives a glimpse into the New York City art scene during its ’80s era. The film, which debuted in New York at the Newfest LGBTQ+ Film Festival, will premiere in Dallas (and other cities) on Friday, March 28 at the Violet Crown for a limited run. 

The film is directed by Brian Vincent and produced by North Texas native Heather Spore. 

“Really, it’s a dream come true to be able to screen my first film in my old stomping grounds,” Spore said in an email to Dallas Voice. “North Texas is where I went to school, became the Keller High School homecoming queen, sang in choir, found my love for theater…got my first creative spark which set me up for a Broadway performing career and now producing a documentary.”

Raised in Keller, she attended Texas Wesleyan University and then started her career as an actor with roles at Theatre Arlington and Stage West. She then relocated to New York where she was cast in an off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks and later joined as the understudy to Glinda in Wicked on Broadway. The latter was a role she held for more than 10 years. 

Now, she’s ventured into the world of film. 

“Make Me Famous is about being a striving artist and what that means, foibles and all,” she mentioned. “It represents the 99 percent of creatives who put everything into their art and may never get famous, but they bring it every day nevertheless.”

Artist Edward Brezinski worked alongside such icons of the era like Keith Haring, David Wojnarowicz, and Jean Michel Basquiat in the 1980s Lower East Side art scene. He just ever attained the same level of notoriety they had. The film looks to uncover how Brezinski existed in that orbit but never got the fame he was fixated on. 

The artist disappeared from the New York scene and the film speculates on the mystery if he faked his own death.

As people are now discovering Brezinski through the doc, director Brian Vincent finds that the queer community has embraced the story to lift the film up.

“Charismatic painter Edward Brezinski has been captivating audiences and making fans. It hasn’t hurt that he’s as handsome as a movie star – both talented and impossible,” Vincent said. “The support the movie has gotten from the gay community has been its life blood. Our documentary premiered at NewFest, New York’s LGBTQ+ film festival. Then it rocked Outfest in LA. Make Me Famous is now the third highest grossing art-doc of 2023. This documentary isn’t just about the madcap 80s art-scene in NYC, it centers on a mostly gay community of gifted artists that demanded the world’s attention and never let it go. Brezinski is one of many struggling souls that made that happen.”

The film adds in some hot goss from gallery owners and other artists for a distinct insight into the spirit of the era and the artists and people of that time. 

“This is a dishy look at what it was like to be an artist in New York and by focusing on young, queer painter Edward Brezinski, you experience the  thrill of trying to make it alongside some of the most famous artists in American history  all the while delving into the spirit of the artists themselves, what drove their generation  and what they were up against,” Spore added. 

The film opens Friday for a limited one week run. 

See the trailer below:

—Rich Lopez

Liliana Bloch Gallery announced its new exhibit will be Towards A Queer Transcendence by Dallas artist Ted Kincaid. The gallery will host an opening reception with the artist on March 8 from 5-7 p.m. The exhibit will run through April 19.

From the gallery and artist:

Artist Ted Kincaid makes a return to Liliana Bloch Gallery with an exhibition that showcases a striking evolution in his artistic practice while preserving the thematic continuity that has defined his remarkable four-decade career. Towards A Queer Transcendence continues the ongoing journey of a conceptual artist increasingly drawn to a realm beyond what can be seen, whose work has continually challenged our notions of what is before us, versus our perceptions, desires, illusions and dreams.

Queer transcendence is a concept that intersects queer theory and spiritual metaphysics. It refers to the idea of moving beyond or surpassing outmoded cultural and traditional binary understandings of gender, sexuality, and identity. This work moves from an exploration of the external world, whether real or imagined, and instead ventures beyond the physical to explore the spiritual, particularly in the form of Queer Inner Divinity; encapsulating the profound recognition and celebration of the inherent sacredness and authenticity within individuals who identify as queer. It signifies the acknowledgment and celebrates the divine essence present within each person, irrespective of gender identity, sexual orientation or societal norms.

At its core, queer transcendence challenges societal norms and constructs that limit or restrict individuals based on their gender or sexual orientation. It posits the embracing of complexity, ambiguity, and multiplicity in identity, rather than adhering to rigid definitions. It is my goal for this work to truly transgress the constraints of heteronormativity and cisnormativity, as well as exploring alternative ways of being and experiencing the world. It encompasses spiritual or metaphysical dimensions, seeking to connect with something larger while embracing the divine essence of queer identity.

Kincaid’s work can be found among the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, L’Associazione Fotografica Imago, Arezzo, Italy, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Museum of Fine Arts in San Antonio, The Columbus Museum and the Georgia Museum of Art.

–Rich Lopez

JAMES RUSSELL | Contributing Writer
james.journo@gmail.com

Hugh Hayden knows the meaning of a homecoming: The gay, Black artist played football at Jesuit High School in Dallas, and he has experienced the jubilance, social events and dances of the annual homecoming games.

Now based in New York, the artist is experiencing a different type of homecoming. There’s no crowd, no tailgating and no dance, but there is a cafeteria and locker room in his solo show Hugh Hayden: Homecoming.

This show is Hayden’s hometown debut, and it runs through Jan, 5 at the Nasher Sculpture Center.

Hayden’s best known for building critiques of the American Dream. That includes criticizing the inaccessibility to public education, as in his 2022 installation Brier Patch, an ambitious installation in New York’s Madison Square Park of 100 newly-minted school desks assembled into “classrooms,” and his recent commentary on Black masculinity, guns and queer life built around bathroom stalls at Lisson Gallery in Los Angeles.

Hayden is less known for opening up about his personal life.

The title Homecoming, said curator Leigh Arnold, takes on multiple meanings. It refers to the Texas high school pastime of football, his youth and the simple fact it’s his first solo show in Dallas.

“The theme isn’t new to him by any means. But with the objects he’s making, the idea of home typically means safety and where you feel loved and accepted,” Arnold said.

“I’m using the word ‘typically’ because that’s the idea of home that is part of this overarching theme of the American dream,” Arnold added. “What he’s doing is showing how it can be a scary place. For a lot of people, especially LGBTQ people, a home might be a really tragic place for you to be or a place where you don’t feel safe or accepted.”

The show has three structures, which Hayden prefers to call “domestic spaces.” Two interior spaces (a house on one side and school, locker room and chapel on the other) are connected in the center by a reconstructed playground, Kidsville in Duncanville, where he played as a child.

That sculpture, Brush, is made from wood and steel. Unlike the typical playground, it’s surrounded by bristles (boar’s hair). The bristles, and other pointy objects, also poke through a kitchen table and the dreaded lunchroom tables. They represent inaccessibility, whether to education or to freedom.

In the household are, for instance, Made in Heaven, with two headless skeletons dangling from the ceiling embracing each other. Unless you know osteology, you likely don’t know their sex, said Arnold, adding a layer of mystery.

(She even corrected herself when she identified them as him and her.)

Then as a joke and self-reference, there is a small, framed work, Force Field, which looks like a drawing of the Texas flag. Instead, it’s made from the HIV-preventive Descovy, Propecia for hair loss and Zyrtec for allergies.

The most profound example of Hayden’s purpose is a reconstructed Adirondack chair, a feature on many American porches, which faces the large garden where some of the museum’s largest and most well-known sculptures reside.

“The chair is recognizable to me because I had the privilege of growing up in a family that had access to land, but also leisure time,” Arnold said.

And the question of privilege is strongly reinforced as it extends to many museums. To see the show will cost you in terms of money and time.

Yet metaphors aren’t Hayden’s strong point. His work is so full of layers of meaning that you wonder if there is any at all.

Where he excels is form and his use of material.

Hayden studied architecture as an undergraduate at Cornell University and, for a decade, designed storefronts and other commercial properties. He jumped to sculpture and got his MFA at Columbia University, where he studied with conceptual artists like Mark Dion.

He loves wood and experimenting with it and other materials. He retrieves wood, such as disposed Christmas trees, from New York City’s waste disposal department, “Then he scrapes them down to the bare bones as to remove any references to that holiday,” said Arnold.

“He asks what [the wood’s] original purpose was and what could it also be.”

For a sculptor, the process is profound enough.

Dallas Glass Arts Manager Tatara Siegel is one of the artists who teaches programming at the studio. Ornaments customers can create this year include the Christmas pickle and a snowman. (Photos courtesy of Dallas Glass Art)

Dallas Glass Art is offering unique ornaments and glass blowing classes for the holidays

MELISSA WHITLER | NBCU Fellow
Melissa@DallasVoice.com

This year Dallas Glass Art is introducing a new ornament in its annual lineup of sparkling, hand-crafted holiday decor: the Pickle. It was inspired by the tradition many households have of hiding a pickle in the Christmas tree for young ones to find.

“The history of finding the pickle on the tree was rich with fun and good fortune, so we thought we would offer our guests the opportunity to be a part of having their hands make the one for their tree,” said Tatara Siegel, manager at Dallas Glass Art.

Ornaments can be purchased online, or you can make your own at the studio. Dallas Glass Art is also offering tiny snowmen and round- or teardrop-shaped ornaments created in the color of your choosing.

No matter your holiday aesthetic, there is an option for you.

In addition to ornaments, the studio also creates vases, bowls, drinking glasses and other seasonal items.

Carlyn Ray started Dallas Glass Art in 2013 so she could have a place to share her passion for glassblowing with the community and create her own site-specific art. The studio’s stated mission is to educate and inspire creativity while offering a unique experience.

Dallas Glass Art employs young glass artists who were either students in the glass department at the University of Texas in Arlington or people who are passionate about glass as an artistic medium. These employees teach the majority of the public and private programming at the studio.

The team also includes shop dog Chai, who might not know a lot about glass blowing but provides lots of encouragement.

The studio also participates in an outreach program called Art Reaching Out, that provides students in grades six through 12 in underserved communities with hands-on experience with glass art. In workshops, instructors explain how science, technology, engineering and math apply to the creation of blown glass art. The organization also works with local glass professionals to create glass sculpture installations for these communities.

Carlyn Ray Designs and Dallas Glass Art operate out of one glassblowing studio.

“It’s pretty cool to watch Carlyn and her team of artists create these large-scale beautiful glass installations,” said Siegel. “It is equally fulfilling to watch the general public come into the studio and be enamored by the movement of the molten glass, and their connectivity to it.

“The joy they feel after having created something is magical.”

Siegel added, “I think my favorite ornament we made this year was the cowboy hat, which tips a little towards Texas and the cowboy culture in the state.”

Dallas Glass Art made specialty cowboy hat ornaments for a local company this year. Each hat was hand etched with the company’s logo by one of the staff.

“That was a special experience to be a part of,” Siegel commented.

For those who are interested in creating their own special glass ornaments, Dallas Glass Art offers a selection of classes. On Saturdays and Sundays, you can participate in public classes that host around 15 people. Private classes can be booked during the week with two to four people per class.

The studio also offers a series of different tiers of private events, ranging from a formal glass blowing demonstrations by Carlyn Ray herself to hands-on opportunities to make your own blown glass piece. These events can house 25 to 30 people and are perfect for birthdays or other special events.

The classes are very hands-on and interactive, as participants are able to choose the shape and color of what they make. After they’ve decided on the basics, the instructor gives each person the opportunity to use the punty — the metal rod used to gather and blow glass — and participants apply the colored pieces of glass to the base piece themselves. Then the customers get to shape the piece and remove it from the punty.

The final process of cooling the glass, or annealing, can take between 12 to 24 hours, so pieces are not available to take home immediately. Five days after the event guests are able to pick up their piece or have it shipped to them.

If you’re looking for something special to decorate your tree, Dallas Glass Art just might have the ornament for you. And if you don’t see what you want, you can always go down to the studio to craft it yourself.

For more information and to purchase ornaments, go to DallasGlassArt.com.

Cole in blossom, night, 2020

From bullies to muses, East Texas artist empathizes with his subjects

JAMES RUSSELL | Contributing Writer
James.Journo@gmail.com

Chivas Clem returned to his hometown of Paris, Texas, in 2010 after more than a decade in New York City, to find the small town he left in the late 1980s to attend Connecticut College mostly unchanged. He also found new inspiration from an old, unexpected source.

When he first got to New York, Clem was selected to study in the prestigious Whitney Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art. It is a selective program that has produced internationally-renowned artists, critics and curators.
Clem studied in the visual arts division. But he worked across fields, including at magazines and running an acclaimed art space. He found some success, but by the time he moved back home to Texas, he had grown sick of the hustle of the art world.

Plus, in Paris, he realized, he could live “comfortably on nothing.”

Among the people he stayed in touch with is curator Alison M. Gingeras, who curated his newest show — Shirttail Kin — which opened at the Dallas Contemporary on Oct. 17 and runs through Jan. 12, 2025. The exhibit includes more than 70 photographs, spanning a decade, of men — roughnecks, rednecks, homeless, illiterates and ex-cons — who have been stereotyped and demeaned in public life. To others, they were the angry white men who former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described during her 2016 presidential campaign as “deplorables.”

But for Clem, they are guys in his community and part of the “shirttail kin,” a Southern term for chosen families.

“It’s terrible to call anyone that,” he said of Clinton’s moniker for these men and those like them. Yet he was curious:

What does a so-called “deplorable” look like. Do they look like these men? And are these transients like the guys who bullied him for his sexual orientation as a young man?

For the next decade he developed relationships with these men, some of whom were in and out of prison. They became his “shirttail kin” — a southern term for one’s chosen family.

“I was making sculptures and needed studio assistants,” he said. “They wouldn’t move things. They’d break things. They were terrible studio assistants.”

But even so, Clem realized, these men were human, too. He began photographing them, sometimes in provocative positions. Eventually, he amassed 1,600 photographs of these guys shooting up drugs, lounging around naked, masturbating and just staring aimlessly.

In some photos they’re naked, revealing mostly slender, tattooed bodies — not the bodies of “deplorables,” and no less the perception of the Southern man.

With this show, Clem shows off this series for the first time. The photographs take a different direction from Clem’s previous works, which dealt with celebrity culture and subculture niches. Thematically, it is a good fit for Gingeras, a curator with an incredible attention to detail, understanding of the significance of space and a wide variety of interests.

“He’s moved from the fragility and hypocrisy of movie stars and their downfall. He has a real radar for emotion and empathy as well as the opposite,” Gingeras said of Shirttail Kin. “His work comes from an interesting and genuine perspective — an incredible reversal from being terrified of to now befriending the same type of person.

“He’s created this muse relationship. There’s a depth of human connection in the images,” she added.

Despite past experiences with Southern masculinity, Clem realized these men weren’t those bullies. He could’ve approached them as the stereotypical Southern men who beat him up, but, he said, “I didn’t want to be afraid of them.”

And he wasn’t.

“I’ve been intertwined in their lives. Some have been to my parents’ home. Some call me in an emergency,” Clem said.

“All of these guys grew up having nothing, and they still don’t have anything. No one nurtured them. They’re this whole underclass created by social and political systems.”

But the commentary isn’t his point. His photographs are not about social justice and progress.

“I didn’t go in to lift them up,” he said. Nor did he want, even as a queer artist, to make these works a queer statement.

People are obsessed with whether the men are gay, yet none of them identify as gay.

“In the art world, this is identity work. My work gets coded as queer. But it’s much more complex,” Clem said. “There’s something interesting about letting me into their lives. It’s adjacent to queerness,” he said.

Clem is evading these stereotypes, said Gingeras. “He’s also showing how complex sexual identity is. Not many people are going there on this level.”

And the timing is intentional, she added.

“In an election year, we hear about this polarized rhetoric about the marginalized white man. This deconstructs the myth of the white men ‘who are left behind,’” she said.

Green Day gave an energetic performance this week on Wednesday, Sept. 11, at Globe Life Field in Arlington. Before the band came on stage, The Linda Lindas, Rancid, and Smashing Pumpkins warmed up the crowd. It was a multigenerational audience, with young kids, teens, and older adults all dressed up for the concert.

Right before the performance began, the crowd shared a connecting moment with everyone singing along to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” including the security guards. Then Green Day ran on stage with their song “The American Dream is Killing Me.”

Despite it being 30 years since the release of their hit album Dookie, Green Day still has the same energy and loyal fans. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong rocked an all-black ensemble, with his blond bouncing hair and, as one little boy described it, “guy-liner.”  Drummer Tré Cool served with his blue hair and matching shorts, and bassist Mike Dirnt started in an orange jumpsuit, later changing to a sleek sleeveless black fit.

It was a marathon of a concert, as the crowd was on their feet through it all, jumping and throwing hands in the air. Legs, feet, and arms were definitely sore afterwards. The stage also featured impressive pyrotechnics, and at one point a flying inflatable plane, á la Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Behind the band was a giant mushroom cloud and plenty of eye-catching graphics.

About halfway through, someone passed up a giant blue foam cowboy hat that Armstrong donned for “Dilemma.” He then proceeded to bring up a young fan named Eva from the crowd to finish off the song, and sent her off with the hat.

When the band transitioned to music from their album American Idiot, an inflatable hand holding their iconic heart grenade burst from the stage. Despite the album turning 20 next week, the music still holds a lot of relevance. There is something very therapeutic about yelling the recently changed lyrics “I’m not part of a MAGA agenda” from the title song with a stadium filled with people.

It was a night for living in the present moment, with Armstrong calling for everyone to put their phones down and put their hands up. It wasn’t until a quieter moment when everyone turned on their flashlights that he conceded “the only thing these god forsaken phones are good for is these god damn lights.”

Green Day has been performing in Texas since they were 19 years old, and they are still able to deliver an amazing, uplifting performance. Armstrong summarized the night as one about “love, happiness and unity.” With an impressive 38 song set list, the band finished off with three encore songs, including the tour debut of the song “Suzie Chapstick.” Armstrong showed off his pride with the song “Bobby Sox,” which features both the lyrics “do you wanna be my girlfriend?” and “do you wanna be my boyfriend?”

It was quite the performance, fun for die hard fans and casual listeners alike. And in a time when politics looms so largely, punk rock is especially needed.

-Melissa Whitler

James Harris Gallery opened its first solo exhibition with artist Molly Vaughan on Aug. 24. Vaughan is a multi-disciplinary artist who works in performance, sculpture and painting that addresses the representation of the transgender community and those who do not fall into the binary gender spectrum.

The gallery describes her work as “an investigation of the fluidity of gender and asks the viewer to see the positivity of transgender and gender diverse bodies when binary systems are questioned and deconstructed.”

On Friday, Sept. 6, Vaughan will perform the piece “Atonement for Imaginary Sins” which she debuted at the Alabama Center for Contemporary Art in 2023. The piece, which gallery owner James Harris described as intense, is roughly an hour-long and speaks out against all the “anti-LGBTQIA2S+ legislation bills pushed forward in the country since 2023” where Vaughan performs self-flagellation.

From the gallery:

Since January of 2023, more than 1,000 bills have been proposed in the USA against LGBTQIA2S+ community, the majority of which are directed at the trans community, particularly in the areas of health care, education, and important civil rights. Using a flogger created from the symbolic elements of the American flag, the artist flogs herself one time for each bill pushed forward in the country since the beginning of 2023.  

Vaughan’s act of self-flagellation makes visible the emotional pain that the seemingly endless attack on the trans community generates. With each blow, the artist fortifies herself against this hate, and asserts her ability to hold firm against those who wish her harm. 

Traditionally, flagellation is an act of atonement for sin, but these bills accuse the artist and her community of sins they have never committed. They are imagined and wielded against trans people who have long been social and political pawns. By taking the flogger in her own hand and striking her own body, Vaughan is denying her tormentors the privilege and satisfaction of physical harm.

The performance begins at 7 p.m. and RSVPs are required to attend. The exhibition itself runs through Oct. 19 and consists of two bodies of work.

In the front main gallery, a selection of Vaughan’s drawings along with a sculpture inspired by the late Baroque style of Rococo. Vaughan has focused on the relationship between Rococo-style and femininity and inserts transgender figures creating new perspectives. Vaughan’s most current series of work features four oil paintings on view in the second gallery.

For more information click here. To RSVP to Friday’s performance, click here.

–Rich Lopez