The Radical Black Art and Performance Series at Contemporary Art Galleries continues!
2/12/2021
Performance Screening: Tongues Untied by Marlon Riggs
6:00pm – 7:30pm
Event Registration
Trailer
Marlon Riggs’ essay film Tongues United gives voice to communities of black gay men, presenting their cultures and perspectives on the world as they confront racism, homophobia, and marginalization. It broke new artistic ground by mixing poetry (by Essex Hemphill and other artists), music, performance and Riggs’ autobiographical revelations. The film was embraced by black gay audiences for its authentic representation of style, and culture, as well its fierce response to oppression. It opened up opportunities for dialogue among and across communities.
Tongues Untied has been lauded by critics for its vision and its bold aesthetic advances, and vilified by anti-gay forces who used it to condemn government funding of the arts. It was even denounced from the floor of Congress. “Black men loving Black men is the revolutionary act” is the rallying cry at the film’s end and after more than 20 years, Tongues United remains a celebrated vehicle for eloquent self-expression and liberation.
Marlon Riggs was born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1957. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1978, with a major in History. While at Harvard, Riggs pursued an independent study of the portrayal of “male homosexuality in American fiction and poetry.” Riggs received a master’s degree in journalism with a specialization in documentary film in 1981 from the University of California, Berkeley. Riggs wrote, produced, and directed eight films and videos. He also wrote numerous scholarly articles and held interviews on identity, politics, censorship, African American culture, and documentary film practice. Working during the height of the culture wars of the 1990s, Riggs examined highly contested topics within the fabric of American identity and African American culture.
Additional info can be found at the Marlon Riggs Resource Page
* Please join us for a brief discussion after the screening
For more information, contact: Luke Seward at luke.seward@uconn.edu