MKE LGBT Community Center, Summer-Autumn, 2013
Xeno:Mke 2013 - 2023 is an ongoing historical archive contemplating the past, present and future of the LGBT+ Civil Rights movement. Launched in 2013 during a summer residency at the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center, on the eve of landmark Supreme Court decisions that would alter LGBT+ Civil Rights forever, the installation included 100 portraits produced at Center events, historical material from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee’s LGBT+ Archive and snapshots from Milwaukee's oldest gay bar ‘This Is It!’ est. 1968. With iterations in 2015 and 2016 that joyfully celebrated national marriage equality then mourned the Pulse nightclub attack, Xeno:Mke 2013-2023 employs time itself as a material to consider the political forces surrounding the stability of the photograph.
Project research archive: Xeno:Mke 2013-2023
2013, Archival inkjet prints, 13x19” each
Found photo captioned: Gay party, Chicago, 1955
Eldon Murray (1930-2007) is a nationally recognized figure in the LGBT+ rights movement. Murray’s local activism began in 1969 after the Stonewall Riots in New York City. He is a founding member of Milwaukee's Gay People’s Union (GPU) that launched The GPU News in 1971 which grew into one of the first national LGBT+ publications of its kind. Serving as editor until 1980, Murray also hosted “Gay Perspectives” one of the first regularly broadcast gay radio programs. In 1974 Murray worked to open the GPU Clinic, the first gay men’s STD treatment center in the country. In the 1980s Murray wrote the first grants for what would become the Milwaukee AIDS Project, known later as the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin. In his later years, Murray worked as an advocate for gay senior citizens, founding SAGE (Senior Action in a Gay Environment) Milwaukee.
Among the many honors bestowed upon Murray: recognition by the International Gay and Lesbian Archives as one of 32 pioneers of the movement, induction in the Milwaukee County Committee on Aging’s Senior Citizens Hall of Fame and Milwaukee Pridefest’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Found photograph, circa 1980
Video still, circa 1989, The Phil Donahue Show
Miriam Ben-Shalom is an American educator, activist and former Staff Sergeant in the United States Army. After being discharged from the military for homosexuality in 1976, she successfully challenged her discharge in court and returned to military service in 1987. Ben-Shalom is the first openly gay person to be reinstated after being discharged under the military's policy excluding homosexuals from military service. She served until 1990 when the Army succeeded in terminating her service after prolonged judicial proceedings. Ben-Shalom was literally the national face of LGBT discrimination in the military in the late 1980s appearing on nearly all major network talk show programs of the era, paving the way for full LGBT+ equality by the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010.
Original Citation, Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors acknowledging the life and achievement of Alyn Hess, April 1989
Alyn Hess was one of Milwaukee's earliest gay rights activists. He helped to bring about Milwaukee's Gay Rights Ordinance, which prohibits discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation. Much of Alyn's work evolved around his involvement in Gay People's Union, which he helped found and served as president. He worked closely with Miriam Ben Shalom's discrimination case against the U.S. Army. Hess was instrumental in passing the United States’ first statewide Civil Rights bill banning LGBT+ discrimination in Wisconsin in 1982. Alyn died of AIDS related complications April 1989.
Installation view:
Culture Jam MKE Revolution!
RedLine, Milwaukee, Autumn, 2016
Installation view:
Culture Jam MKE Revolution!
RedLine, Milwaukee, Autumn, 2016
Installation view:
Culture Jam MKE Revolution!
RedLine, Milwaukee, Autumn, 2016
Installation detail:
Culture Jam MKE Truth
Redline, Milwaukee, Autumn, 2015