MondoHomo, Atlanta’s alternative queer arts festival, returns Memorial Day weekend to rock your face off with music, art and queer consciousness. But perhaps you’ve been too intimidated to attend in the past or are not sure what to expect. We interviewed organizer Jesse Morgan for a few tips and insights for those who want to experience MondoHomo but were too afraid to ask.
Here's what you need to know:
What exactly is a “radical queer arts and music festival?” What do you mean by radical or queer? Isn’t it bad to be called queer?
Atlanta artist Philip Bonneau is so addicted to superheroes and villains that he has found a way to incorporate them into his professional life. His new exhibit, “Heroes + Villains #2,” opens at the MISTER Community Center next week for a month-long run.
Art and photography have always been part of Bonneau’s life. His mother was an artist and Bonneau, who is gay and has lived in Georgia his whole life, studied at the Savannah College of Art & Design.
Ultimately, he got a degree in graphic design, but found that photography isn’t something he can or wants to get out of his system. Last May, he did some soul searching and dabbled in photography over the summer.
A new play inspired by the friendship between openly gay artist Robert Sherer and the late conservative Baptist preacher/folk artist Howard Finster has Finster’s Georgia-based family claiming the playwright doesn’t have the legal permission to produce the work – and hurling accusations at Sherer.
“Hidden Man,” a joint collaboration between the University of Georgia and 7 Stages, is a fictionalized account of how Sherer’s life changed as a result of the unlikely camaraderie with Finster in the 1980s. After its world premiere in Athens last week, the play is slated to open March 8 at 7 Stages in Little Five Points.
Playwright Pamela Turner says that as she was working on the project, she contacted the Finster family to let them know about it but did not hear back. But on Feb. 14, Beverly Finster-Guinn — Howard’s daughter — sent an email stating that the Finster family had not given “legal permission” to “use Howard Finster’s image or to use his name in the play or any association to the play.”
Nabil Mousa, an Arab-American artist living in Atlanta, will create a mural on Monday, Jan. 16, to serve as a "social tablet of free expression" to add to a work titled "Judgment Day" that commemorates Sept. 11.
The public is invited to participate in the creation of the art project from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. at the Mattress Factory Lofts, 300 Martin Luther King Jr. SE Atlanta, GA 30312.
From a press release about Monday's event:
I came into the office this morning and found a manilla envelope on my keyboard, addressed to me at the GA Voice office. My name and the address were handwritten. No return address.
Interesting, I wonder what this is all about, I thought. My co-workers wanted to make sure there was no anthrax in the envelope.
I opened the manilla envelope and inside there was a white envelope with one of those plastic windows and I could see $10 bill was inside. One the front of the envelope in the top left corner was written, "for you." On the back of the envelope was written, "follow your narrative urge!" followed by a "#45".