In the Cosmos

Tourmaline: Queering History

31 October 2024 until 26 January 2025

Schwarz-weiß-Filmstill aus dem Film Pollinator von Tourmaline

Tourmaline, Pollinator, 2022

Tourmaline is an artist, filmmaker, writer, and activist whose work reimagines queer history and honors the forerunners who shaped it. As an extension of the exhibition “Andy Warhol & Keith Haring. Party of Life,” her film „Pollinator” (2022) is being shown in Germany for the first time, in cooperation with MUNICH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. The work is dedicated to the renowned artist and trans activist Marsha P. Johnson, portrayed as a “pollinator” whose legacy is carried from flower to flower—ensuring the pleasure and growth of a community.

Info

Period

31 October 2024 until 26 January 2025

Location

Lower level

Curated by

Franziska Linhardt

Press release

Tourmaline: Queering History

Tourmaline’s films and photographs honor the protagonists of the LGBTQIA+ movement and rewrite common narratives and cultural histories. One of them is Marsha P. Johnson, who is a constant presence in Tourmaline’s life and work. Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson (1945–1992) was a Black trans woman activist and played a crucial role in the Stonewall Uprisings of 1969—the initial spark of the gay liberation movement in New York. Together with Sylvia Rivera, she founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), one of the first trans organizations in New York. Johnson’s commitment to this and many other political causes has made her a key figure for the queer community to this day. Although she had long been known for her activism and personality, Andy Warhol portrayed her anonymously in his “Ladies and Gentlemen” series in 1975. One of Warhol’s paintings of Johnson is part of the Brandhorst Collection and can be seen in the exhibition “Andy Warhol & Keith Haring. Party of Life.”

Tourmaline: Pollinator

At Museum Brandhorst, Tourmaline’s “Pollinator” (2022) is being presented in Germany for the first time. In the five-minute film, the artist herself plays the leading role, wandering through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Edwardian rooms of the Brooklyn Museum in a floral dress. The film sequences are interwoven with excerpts from a simulated space flight, footage of her late father, and archival material from the 1992 memorial service for Marsha P. Johnson. In “Pollinator,” Tourmaline presents herself, Johnson, and other private and iconic pioneers as pollinators whose stories and legacies are carried from flower to flower, ensuring the pleasure and growth of a community. The work recounts how the artist “has come to experience loss, the past, the present, and the future—intimately, as if those who came before and have now left are more alive now than ever.”

Tourmaline, Pollinator, 2022

Tourmaline & Sasha Wortzel: Happy Birthday, Marsha!

The short film “Happy Birthday, Marsha!” (2018) by Tourmaline and Sasha Wortzel is a moving homage to Marsha P. Johnson. Interweaving archival material and fictional scenes, the film begins on Johnson’s birthday and imagines the trans activist in the hours leading up to the Stonewall riots of 1969 in New York. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the two artists, in cooperation with MUNICH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL.

Tourmaline

Tourmaline (1983, Roxbury, Massachusetts, USA) is an artist, filmmaker, writer, and activist whose practice centers the experiences of Black, queer, and trans communities and their ability to impact the world. Her films and photographs rewrite dominant narratives and cultural histories to effect paradigm shifts and imagine more pleasurable futures.Tourmaline’s work has been shown in major exhibitions, most recently at the Venice Biennale, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, and MoMA, New York. Her work is part of significant public collections, such as those of the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and the Tate Modern, London.

Sasha Wortzel

Across film and expanded forms of cinema, Sasha Wortzel (*1983, Fort Myers, Florida, USA) explores how past and present are inextricably linked through resonant spaces and their hauntings. Wortzel has exhibited at the New Museum, The Kitchen, the Museum of Modern Art’s Doc Fortnight, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Berlinale, and the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival, among others. Wortzel is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow and received support from Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation, and a MacDowell fellowship. Wortzel’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum and the Studio Museum of Harlem, among others. Her latest film “How to Carry Water” was a 2023 IDA Documentary Awards nominee for best short documentary and is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.