I Don't Want to Leave the Sand, but I Want to Leave the Island: Reflecting on Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY

KEIJAUN THOMAS [KT]:

It is Sunday, April 28, 2019. I am working the door at Nowadays in Ridgewood, New York, for Soul Summit—usually held in Fort Greene Park, but during the colder months in New York they bless us the last Sunday of each month for our weekly daytime party. A familiar face walks through the door and I am overcome with joy as it has been a long time since I have seen Camilo Godoy—they are an artist, their zine project Amigxs (2017–), features photos of queer and trans people in intimate and tender moments. We catch up briefly, reminiscing on meeting and me being a part of their Movement Research performance: HIC HABITAT FELICITAS [Here dwells felicity], 2016—(Working Title). We hug and hold space for a moment then I share our Safer Space policy before they head inside to dance and commune.

A couple days later, Godoy hits me up on Instagram to invite me to the reception of their upcoming group exhibition, Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall at the Brooklyn Museum. Amigxs is featured in the exhibition. I tell them "thank you," and that I will be writing about the show. I ask my two dear friends Egon Suds and Christopher Sonny Martinez if they would like to join me for the opening. I met Egon and Sonny in 2012–13 while living in Chicago and going to the same underground parties. We would all reconnect again in New York City in 2015 going to the same underground raves, sharing our beds for sleepovers after the after-after hours, having drinks, cooking dinner

Installation view: Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall, May 3, 2019, through December 8, 2019, Brooklyn Museum. (Image: Jonathan Dorado, Brooklyn Museum)

Installation view: Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall, May 3, 2019, through December 8, 2019, Brooklyn Museum. (Image: Jonathan Dorado, Brooklyn Museum)

for each other, and working on art projects, too. With little to no convincing they agree to join me at the opening reception. Egon and I share a car to the show and Sonny meets us at the museum. The energy inside the museum is full, energetic, and celebratory. We mingle, grab drinks, see the work, but mostly we chat with friends, many are artists in the show.

A few weeks later, Egon and I will return to see the full exhibition. Egon and I plan to go together, and decide to meet for lunch at a cafe near the museum. Egon is coming from his apartment in the West Village in Manhattan and me from my apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. I google search "cafes near Brooklyn Museum," turns out there is a cafe a block away. I text them a screenshot of the name and location. We convene at Lincoln Station, a small cafe for a shared meal before going to the exhibition.

It is important to note that the exhibition presents twenty-eight artist making work that is tender, full, necessary, raw, relentless, and unapologetic.

EGON SUDS [ES]:

It is a great privilege to have a therapist who, having listened to me bemoan my spike in libido, steadily increasing session by session, cocks his head and says my homework this week is to buy sexy underwear. Last week's home assignment was mood charting in the hopes of finding out whether testosterone, though making me sex mad, was also making me clinically insane. We never did figure that one out. Having a pathological penchant for the excessive, and perhaps emboldened by testosterone, I take his suggestion to heart. I seek out every pair of latex, mesh, pvc, and skin-tight underwear I have access to. One such piece is a tiny yellow thing that a friend discreetly slides under their checkout counter at work, saying that it...