March 2024
Exhibition Announcement:
WHAT DID IT FEEL LIKE TO BE THERE? 12 PORTRAITS FROM THE ADDRESSES PROJECT
CITY LORE GALLERY, NEW YORK, NY
March 29 - June 30, 2024
December 2022
Panel Discussion:
A CONVERSATION BETWEEN GWEN SHOCKEY, RIYA LERNER, AND THE WOMEN OF THE ADDRESSES PROJECT
PEN AND BRUSH GALLERY, NEW YORK, NY
Thursday, December 8, 2022 6-8pm
What did it feel like to be there?: 12 Portraits from The Addresses Project presents a selection of twelve portraits from a larger multi-disciplinary project by Gwen Shockey with Riya Lerner featuring lesbian and queer women who have dedicated their lives to creating and holding space for women in New York City from the 1950s to today. The individuals included in the series represent a diverse network of community builders engaged with social and political organizing, mental health advocacy, nightlife, music, journalism, visual art, literature, poetry, performance, research, safer sex and kink practices. Each portrait includes a photograph taken in a significant location for the sitter, along with segments from their oral history interview and selected ephemera from their life and work. To see the full project please visit addressesproject.com.
Riya Lerner, Lisa Davis at Home, West Village, New York, 2020, Archival pigment print, 16 x 20 in. Courtesy of the artist.
October, 2022
Exhibition Announcement:
WHAT DID IT FEEL LIKE TO BE THERE? 12 PORTRAITS FROM THE ADDRESSES PROJECT
PEN AND BRUSH GALLERY, NEW YORK, NY
October 13 - December 17, 2022
What did it feel like to be there?: 12 Portraits from The Addresses Project presents a selection of twelve portraits from a larger multi-disciplinary project by Gwen Shockey with Riya Lerner featuring lesbian and queer women who have dedicated their lives to creating and holding space for women in New York City from the 1950s to today. The individuals included in the series represent a diverse network of community builders engaged with social and political organizing, mental health advocacy, nightlife, music, journalism, visual art, literature, poetry, performance, research, safer sex and kink practices. Each portrait includes a photograph taken in a significant location for the sitter, along with segments from their oral history interview and selected ephemera from their life and work. To see the full project please visit addressesproject.com.
February, 2021
Group Exhibition:
DISSOLUTION
THE LESLIE LOHMAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK, NY
February 6 - May 25, 2021
Dissolution features works of art created by the first two cohorts of the annual Leslie-Lohman Museum Artist Fellowship 2017-18 and 2018-19. The Fellows come from disparate backgrounds and engage in equally divergent art practices, and their artwork presents a multitude of positions within contemporary queer identity.
Queer artists have always existed at the forefront of politically engaged artmaking. Continuing that legacy, these works consider the role of queerness at the intersection of wider social relations, including class and inequality, race, and ecological crisis. Dissolution refers to artistic strategies of negation and undoing, in which representations of hierarchical and normative structures are fragmented, dissolved, or upended, in an act of resistance to the structures of oppression they uphold. Works in the exhibition subvert and reimagine signifiers of masculinity, imagine new forms of childhood, or resist linear narratives of progress. Through this embrace of negation, artists illustrate alternate possibilities and propose radically new ways of being.
The exhibition’s title is influenced by the chaos narrative featured in Arthur Frank’s book The Wounded Storyteller, stating “Chaos stories show how quickly the props that other stories depend on can be kicked away.” At a moment in history when the oppressive structures continue to try to confine us, may the breadth of these artistic offerings provide the viewer with fuel, hope, humor, and reprieve.
Organized by Angela Hallinan
Part 1: Feb 6 -Mar 13: Buzz Slutzky, Catalina Schliebener, Eric Rhein, Gwen Shockey, Kiyan Williams, Kristine Eudey, Max Colby, Michael Childress, Rodrigo Moreira, Vanessa Rondon.
Part 2: April 11-May 25: Boris Torres, Caitlin Rose Sweet, Carrie Hawks, Christopher Nuñez, Desiree Almoradie, Eduardo Shlomo Velazquez, Frederick Weston, Jason Villegas, Lola Flash, Nash Glynn, Sal Muñoz, Seyi Odebanjo.
June, 2020
Online Exhibition:
TAKING SPACE: A Queer Womxn’s Portrait Series by Gwen Shockey and Riya Lerner
THE CENTER, NEW YORK, NY
June 10 – September 10, 2020
Taking Space was initially conceived of as an exhibition at The Center, which has been postponed. These four selections are from a larger series of mixed-media portraits by Gwen Shockey and Riya Lerner featuring lesbian and queer women who have dedicated their lives to creating and holding space for women in New York City from the 1950s to today. The individuals included in the series represent a diverse network of community builders engaged with social and political organizing, mental health advocacy, nightlife, music, journalism, visual art, literature, poetry, performance, research, safer sex and kink practices. Each portrait includes a photograph taken in a significant location for the sitter, along with segments from their oral history interview and selected ephemera from their life and work. To see the full project please visit addressesproject.com.
January, 2020
ADDRESSES PROJECT Awarded NYFA Fiscal Sponsorship
November, 2019
Group Exhibition:
IDOL WORSHIP
SMACK MELLON, BROOKLYN, NY
November 16 – December 29, 2019
Opening Reception November 16, 6 – 8PM
Participating Artists: Rebecca Baldwin, Loren Britton, Anna Campbell, Liz Collins, Alexandria Deters, Jamison Edgar, Jason Elizondo, Cara Erskine, Caroline Garcia, Patty Gone, Kris Grey, Tatyana Gubash, Michelle Handelman, Tenaya Izu, Aaron Krach, Phoenix Lindsey-Hall, Emily Lombardo, Helina Metaferia, Sophia Narrett, Brice Peterson, Jennifer Quinones, Gwen Shockey, Pacifico Silano, Anna Skarbek, Tiffany Smith, Ariella Tai, and Conrad Ventur
Organized by guest curator Emily Colucci, the group exhibition Idol Worship celebrates the ongoing cultural, social and political significance of role model adoration as an essential survival strategy. Self-identifying women, in particular, are often overlooked as figures to be emulated, exempt from the label of “genius” so readily bestowed upon men. Partially inspired by John Waters’s Role Models, a pseudo-autobiography through his influences or “filth elders,” the exhibition will emphasize work that presents women and women-identifying role models as sources of possibility, creativity, courage, self-fashioning and sometimes, transgression. While teens’ fanatical impulse to paper their bedroom walls with imagery of their favorite stars is seen as merely an adolescent phase, Idol Worship asserts how the identification with role models is especially significant for those alienated from dominant social institutions, whether the biological family, history, or mainstream culture. Colucci’s proposal was selected through a curatorial open call for emerging curators, and the exhibition will include a combination of emerging artists chosen from another open call, as well as established artists selected by the curator.
October, 2019
“Artist Works to Preserve History of NYC's Lesbian Bars”
INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE BODARKY, OCTOBER 9, 2019
“You can find a map of almost anything in New York City, from where the best restaurants are to famous movie locations. But, our guest on this week's Cityscape has created a map to showcase an underrpresented aspect of the city's history and culture. Gwen Shockey is a New York City-based artist whose latest project is an online map called the Addresses Project. It's designed to show how sacred safe spaces are for lesbian and queer people.”
August, 2019
“An Artist’s Mission to Preserve New York City’s History of Lesbian Nightlife”
BY SUNNY LEERASANTHANAH, HYPERALLERGIC, AUGUST 28, 2019
June, 2019
“How artist-activist Gwen Shockey is keeping the memories of NYC’s fading lesbian bars alive”
BY DEVIN GANNON, 6SQFT, JUNE 7, 2019
June, 2019
Event:
DYKE BAR WALKING TOUR
Where have all the dyke bars gone?
Check out this historic tour of dyke spaces lost. Tour starts at Stonewall.
Join us to Hear unique stories, facts and see where dyke bars once stood. All are welcome! This will sell out as space is limited.
New York City Dyke Bar Takeover is a group of artists and activists dedicated to creating and supporting Queer space for self-identified women, transgender and gender non-conforming people of all races. We have raised thousands of dollars fundraising for local queer non-profits and have used funds raised to pay local queer artists to support the creativity of our community. We are here to combat the death of the dyke bar and add to queer visibility.
Limited scholarship tickets are available. Please email us: nycdykebartakeover@gmail.com
This will benefit Lesbian Hertory Archives & the Addresses Project
June, 2019
Publication:
“THE LOST LANDSCAPE OF LESBIAN NIGHTCLUBS IN NEW YORK CITY”
A photo essay by Gwen Shockey and Karen Loew in CHANGE OVER TIME: An International Journal of Conservation and the Built Environment published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Volume 8 (Semiannual: Spring and Fall) featuring photographs and research by Gwen Shockey.
Eve Addams's Tearoom, 129 MacDougal Street, Manhattan, circa 1925–26; currently La Lanterna di Vittorio. (Photograph by Gwen Shockey, 2016)
June, 2019
Solo Exhibition:
VENUS RISING
PRACTICE GALLERY, PHILADELPHIA, PA
June 7 – June 30, 2019
Opening Reception June 7, 6 – 10PM
In time for World Pride and the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion (marking the beginning of the Gay Rights Movement in 1969), Venus Rising celebrates queer and lesbian pleasure and self-actualization through an installation featuring hand-drilled and rubbed woodblock prints, a suspended disco ball lamp, sound and ritual performance.
“I am she who bellows with her three horns, I am the triple one, I am the formidable benevolent infernal one, I am the black the red the white, I am the very great tall powerful one she whose noxious breath has poisoned thousands of generations so be it, I am seated in the highest of the heavens in the starry circle where dwells Sappho of the violet cheeks, as with her the stars’ dazzle pales m/y cheeks, I am the sovereign one, I thunder with m/y three voices the clamorous the serene the strident, but I immediately relinquish m/y indubitably hierarchical position at your arrival, I raise you from your kneeling posture, I tear your mouth from m/y knees, possessed by a lively fever I cast m/yself at your feet from which m/y tongue licks the dust, I say blessed art thou among women who art come the first to release m/e from m/y condition glittering maybe but sombre nonetheless because of m/y very great solitude, may you lose the sense of morning and evening of the stupid duality with all that flows therefrom, may you conceive yourself as I at last see you over the greatest possible space, may your understanding embrace the complexity of the play of the stars and of the feminine agglomerations, may you your- self in this place strive in a frenzied confrontation whether in the shape of the angel or the shape of the demon, may the music of the spheres envelop your struggle, may you not lose your way in pursuing the stillborn, may the black star crown you finally, giving you to sit at m/y side at the apogee of the figuration of lesbian love m/y most unknown.”
Monique Wittig, The Lesbian Body, 1973
In conjunction with Venus Rising:
Feminist Dinner Party: Pleasure
June 8, 2019 6 – 9PM
Artist Liliana Dirks-Goodman will co-host Feminist Dinner Party: Pleasure with Gwen Shockey at the Gallery on June 8 from 6 – 9pm. Feminist Dinner Party is an on-going series by Dirks-Goodman exploring feminist history through the sharing of a meal. Participants will be asked to select and share a short reading on pleasure while dining on aphrodisiacs. RSVP required due to limited seating gwenshockeystudio@gmail.com.
Image courtesy of Liliana Dirks-Goodman.
May, 2019
Research Consultant:
LETTING LOOSE AND FIGHTING BACK: LGTBQ NIGHTLIFE BEFORE AND AFTER STONEWALL AT THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
May 24 – September 22, 2019
New-York Historical Society commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and the dawn of the gay liberation movement this summer, as New York City welcomes WorldPride, the largest Pride celebration in the world. Stonewall 50 at New-York Historical Society features two exhibitions and a special installation, as well as public programs for all ages.
Letting Loose and Fighting Back: LGBTQ Nightlife Before and After Stonewall highlights the ways in which nightlife has been critical in shaping LGBTQ identity, building community, developing political awareness, and fostering genres of creative expression that have influenced popular culture worldwide. Serving as oases of expression, resilience, and resistance, LGBTQ bars, clubs, and nightlife spaces were hard-won in the face of policing, unfavorable public policies, and Mafia control. The exhibition begins with gay bars in the 1950s and 1960s continues through the rise of the gay liberation movement and the emergence of LGBTQ clubs as places of community activism.
Eugene Gordon, ACT UP activists at Pride March, 1988. New-York Historical Society Library
May, 2019
“Last call for lesbian bars: the ever-changing nightlife for LGBTQ women in New York”
BY MURI ASSUNÇÃO, THE DAILY NEWS, MAY 19, 2019
May, 2019
“An Art Show for Hundreds of Women. And That’s Just the Artists.”
BY MELENA RYZIK, THE NEW YORK TIMES, MAY 16, 2019
Like so many good ideas, the Every Woman Biennial was born of a joke. Now it’s in its third edition, displaying the work of over 600 female and nonbinary artists, and expanding to Los Angeles.
May, 2019
Group Exhibition:
"I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY!” EVERY WOMAN BIENNIAL AT LA MAMA GALLERY AND 222 BOWERY
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
May 20 – 29, 2019
Opening Reception May 19, 4 – 7 pm
The Every Woman Biennial Serenades New York City and Los Angeles with an All-Women Art Biennial
The 2019 Biennial: "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" comes as a response to the awakening representation of women artists. This is the third iteration of Christine Finley’s acclaimed women’s art exhibition. “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” is a rally cry for self identifying women artists to cross-pollinate with each other across a wide variety of mediums, generations, as well as racial and ethnic backgrounds. The aim of bringing together so many creative voices is to sing a collective song that celebrates the contributions of female artists and marks a moment in our communal trajectory. The Every Woman Biennial is committed to creating not only an exhibition, but a new consciousness in the world of art which favors encouragement, connection, inspiration and love.
March, 2019
“Bum Bum Bar, Roosevelt Avenue Lesbian Bar, Closes After More Than 2 Decades”
BY MEGHAN SACKMAN, THE JACKSON HEIGHTS POST, MARCH 1, 2019
Photo by Gwen Shockey, from the AddressesProject.com
September, 2018
UNDERTOW BOOK RELEASE AT MOMA PS1 NY ARTS BOOK FAIR
SEPTEMBER 21-23, 2018
Undertow is a collection of works organized by Pacifico Silano.
Includes works by Chris Berntsen, Elliot Jerome Brown Jr., Gwen Shockey, Jen Everett, Leonard Suryajaya, Pacifico Silano, Res, Sam Stoich and Troy Michie - Also includes an Essay by Emily Colucci.
Limited Edition of 200
Image courtesy of Silent Face Projects
August, 2018
2018-2019 QUEER ARTS FELLOW
THE LESLIE-LOHMAN MUSEUM OF GAY AND LESBIAN ART, SOHO, NEW YORK
Image courtesy of The Leslie-Lohman Museum
June, 2018
NYC CREATIVE SALON: IDENTITY AND QUEERNESS IN ART, EPISODE 4
Image courtesy of NYC Creative Salon
June 25, 2018
Location: Oyg Projects
Moderator: Will Hutnick & Mark Joshua Epstein
Contributors:
Jules Gimbrone
Glendalys Medina
Gwen Shockey
Laurel Sparks
Cha'ves Jamall
Art practice and artist identity are inseparable ideas, as artists pull from life experiences to influence their work. An art practice creates a space to confront and work through difficult or unresolved aspects of identity. While some artists focus specifically on body/identity politics, others create work indirectly related to identity such as connections, structure, place, process, and/or medium.
Mission
The mission of the NYC Creative Salon is to provide a sustainable platform for creative discussions, the chance to network and collaborate and the access to an intimate small-group setting.
While many creative professionals are producing and exhibiting work, the opportunities to discuss the work are lacking. We believe that the ideas behind a work and the creator discussing these ideas with others is just as important as making the work. We want to help support creative professionals by giving them another way to present their work and the experience to discuss their practice.
Through the curatorial process of hand-selecting creative professionals, we look for common threads that will lend well to an organic group discussion. While the moderator asks questions and guides the conversation along, each participant shares their experiences through the lens of their practice. We hope that these connections will lead to future collaborations such as exhibiting together, curatorial projects, blogs, etc. or simply building a network of creative professionals and friends.
Format
The NYC Creative Salon is a series of discussions that take place bi-weekly. Each discussion is approximately an hour and a half long and takes place on a weekday evening. Each series is six discussions under one topic and each discussion has a different group of participants speaking on the topic. Ultimately, there will be six different discussions on one topic, in hopes of reaching a thorough investigation of that idea. The participants include a moderator and approximately 8 people working in various creative fields. We restrict the number of participants to 10 people in order to keep the group intimate and the discussion focused.
Image courtesy of NYC Creative Salon
July, 2018
GENERATION NEXT AT THE WEST WINDSOR ARTS CENTER
WEST WINDSOR, NEW JERSEY
June 25 – August 17, 2018
Opening Reception July 8, 4 – 6 pm
This year our Generation Next exhibition will focus on families of artists. A fascinating look at the “art gene” and how it is utilized and carried from one generation to the next through the work of parents and children who are all working fine artists.
Image courtesy of the West Windsor Arts Center
July, 2018
MAPPING MEMORY AT THE HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN
WASHINGTON D.C.
Sound Scene: Mapping Memory is a FREE and INTERACTIVE audio art "happening," for all ages.
July 7th and 8th, 10am-5pm
At the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
March, 2018
2018 WASSAIC ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
WASSAIC, NY
Image courtesy of The Wassaic Project
November, 2017
DON’T LEAVE ME THIS WAY: FINDING THE REMNANTS OF NYC’S LESBIAN BARS IN GWEN SHOCKEY’S “ADDRESSES”
BY EMILY COLUCCI, NOV. 17, 2017, FILTHY DREAMS: FOR MINORITIES WHO DON’T EVEN FIT INTO OUR OWN MINORITIES
Image courtesy of filthy dreams
November, 2017
PANEL DISCUSSION ON LESBIAN NIGHTLIFE
AMOS ENO GALLERY, BROOKLYN, NY
Gwen will be joined by Stacy Lentz (Stonewall), Flavio Rando (Lesbian Herstory Archives and LHA Lesbian Studies Institute) and Jay Shockley (NYC LGBT Sites Project) for a panel discussion — moderated by Ken Lustbader, co-Director of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project — on these landmarks in lesbian nightlife and their place in the LGBT movement.
ADDRESSES will be showing at the Amos Eno Gallery through November 22, 2017.
Panelists:
Gwen Shockey, artist
Stacy Lentz, co-owner of The Stonewall Inn
Flavia Rando, coordinator for the Lesbian Herstory Archives and founder of the LHA Lesbian Studies Institute
Jay Shockley, co-director of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project
Moderator:
Ken Lustbader, co-director of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project
Image courtesy of NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project
November, 2017
A HERSTORY OF LESBIAN BARS IN NYC: GWEN SHOCKEY CHARTS NO MAN’S LAND
BY ALEXANDER GONZALEZ, NOV. 2, 2017, BEDFORD + BOWERY
Image courtesy of Bedford + Bowery
Image courtesy of Bedford + Bowery
October, 2017
PRESERVING THE MEANING OF LESBIAN BARS
BY KAREN LOEW, OCT. 11, 2017, CITYLAB
Image courtesy of CityLab
Image courtesy of CityLab
September, 2017
“NO MAN’S LAND” EXHIBIT RESURRECTS NEW YORK’S DISAPPEARING LESBIAN BARS
BY SAM MANZELLA, SEPT. 24, 2017, NEWNOWNEXT LOGO TV
Image courtesy of Logo TV
Image courtesy of Logo TV
November, 2017
ADDRESSES
AMOS ENO GALLERY, BROOKLYN, NY
Opening Reception: Friday, November 3 6-8pm
56 Bogart Street, Brooklyn, NY (Morgan stop off the L Train)
Amos Eno Gallery presents ADDRESSES, an exhibition of recent works by Gwen Shockey. A reception will be held on Friday, November 3 from 6 - 8 PM at the gallery’s new location on the first floor of 56 Bogart Street in Brooklyn, NY.
ADDRESSES investigates sites of lesbian and queer community gathering in New York City. Consisting of an expanding archive of prints and oral history interviews, ADDRESSES tracks the history of the Gay Rights Movement, shifts in identity building (and shedding) and the sociopolitical conditions of the city itself over the past six decades. Shockey began working on this project in 2015 and has since gathered over a hundred addresses and names of bars, clubs and venues that once hosted lesbian and queer gatherings. Shockey traveled to locations in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, following instructions given to her by women she interviewed, to photograph what is there now. Because many of these spaces were mafia-owned or kept hidden to protect individual identities from law enforcement there is little recorded information about their histories. ADDRESSES creates an alternate map of New York based on word-of-mouth, memory and the search for difference, community and space for free expression.
September, 2017
NO MAN’S LAND
THE LESLIE-LOHMAN PRINCE STREET PROJECT SPACE
April, 2017
MELDING ART WITH ACTIVISM: AN INTERVIEW WITH GWEN SHOCKEY
DANCE/NYC
Image courtesy of dance/NYC
May, 2017
PRATT INSTITUTE MFA THESIS EXHIBITION: SITES OF LOVE AND FASCINATION
PRATT CAMPUS GALLERIES, BROOKLYN, NY
March, 2017
EXPANDED VISIONS: FIFTY YEARS OF COLLECTING
THE LESLIE-LOHMAN MUSEUM OF GAY AND LESBIAN ART, SOHO, NY
March 10 through May 21, 2017: 250 Works from the permanent collection in celebration of the museum’s expansion and reopening.
Image courtesy of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art