Artfall: Autumn Queer Arts Round-Up

Photos in order: Courtesy The Andy Warhol Museum (5); WOTM (1);  Courtesy PTWF (1); Stephen Kunken (1)

The return of two great queer arts and literary festivals this fall -- the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival from September 25th--28th and the Writing Outside the Margins Festival, which blew up Toronto last Sunday -- only confirmed that early Fall is a great time to travel artfully.

Writing Outside the Margins, or "Canada's Festival of Queer Literary Arts", took over Church Street for it's 2nd annual incarnation, outdoing itself with panels, open mics, poetry slams and exclusive readings with John Cameron Mitchell -- Hedwig and Shortbus -- Michelle Tea -- creator of Sister Spit -- and livewire Mohawk-Canadian Kinnie Starr, whose slam poetry, art, and often-radical race and gender politics have made her an underground legend.

All this, of course, in addition to a fab party DJ'ed by John Cameron Mitchell and Bruce LaBruce, good vibes, hilarious hosts, and a dozen other queer literary personalities. Keep an eye out for this one next year!

Down in Provincetown, the 3rd Annual Tennessee Williams Festival will be welcoming Academy Winner Olympia Dukakis, showcasing performances from the New York production of "Eccentricities of a Nightingale" -- which won rave reviews from Charles Isherwood -- performing scenes from a Portugal-based company's version of "The Night of the Iguana", and world premiere a production of "Green Eyes".

Opening September 13th in Columbus, Ohio's Wexner Center, the only U.S. opening of Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms is a massive, multimedia collection of over 700 of the queer Pop Art master's visual, video and audio works. Curated by a Cologne, Germany-based Eva Meyer-Hermann, originally organized by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and designed by Berlin-based architect chezweitz & roseapple, this show emphasizes Warhol's transgressions between high and low culture, his engagements with sexual identity and his preoccupations with rampant consumerism.

Further emphasizing Warhol's international appeal, a parallel exhibition of Other Voices, Other Rooms will be showing at London's Hayward Gallery from October 7th. Like two parts of one of Warhol's famous four-paneled prints, the two exhibitions will be strikingly similar, but not identical.