Film + Panel Discussion: TRADE CENTER

C R U I S E  C O N T R O L

6:00 pm – Film Screening and Panel Discussion • w/ Billy Miller & Tim Retzloff

Historian Tim Retzloff joins artist-publisher Billy Miller in a presentation and discussion about civil liberties and historic gay spaces.

FEATURING a special screening of filmmaker Adam Baran’s mini-doc Trade Center (9 minutes) – the voices of five gay men who cruised for sex at World Trade Center in the 1970s through the 1990s haunt the sanitized, commerce-driven landscape that is the newly rebuilt Freedom Tower complex…

more here:
https://www.gq.com/story/trade-center-documentary-adam-baran-cruising-history

Tim Retzloff teaches LGBTQ studies and U.S. history at Michigan State University. He received his PhD in history from Yale University in May 2014, working with adviser George Chauncey; Retzloff’s dissertation examines how city and suburb shaped gay and lesbian life and politics in metropolitan Detroit in the decades following World War II. His scholarly articles have appeared in CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, and the anthology Creating a Place for Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Community Histories.

His writings on Michigan’s queer past have appeared in the anthology Creating a Place for Ourselves, the journal GLQ, the collection Making Suburbia, and the pages of Between The Lines.

Debuting June 2022, the story of Christopher Street Detroit ’72, the first-ever LGBTQ+ pride celebration in Michigan held 50 years ago this June 1972, is being brought to life through a full-color, 32-page nonfiction comic book for free distribution. Freelance illustrator Isabel Clare Paul and historian Tim Retzloff teamed up to create “Come Out! In Detroit” over the past year based on eyewitness primary sources, oral histories, and a cache of largely unseen photographs. The comic book’s release will be accompanied by exhibits and public programs in Detroit, Ann Arbor, and East Lansing to mark the 50th anniversary of the event.

Billy Miller is a Detroit native – NYC-based multidisciplinary artist.

His artwork has been exhibited at MoMA PS1, The Center for Book Arts, Deitch Projects, Andrew Edlin Gallery, Feature Gallery, Team Gallery, Kerry Schuss Gallery, Fierman Gallery, Exile Gallery Berlin, Galerie du Jour Agnes B Paris, and others.

He has organized and curated film and video screenings, performances, lectures, and exhibitions at Invisible Exports, 80WSE NYU, HAUS Vienna, NYC Public Library, Fringe Festival London, Artists’ Television Access (S.F.), Printed Matter, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Geffen Center at LA MOCA, and others.

His writing has been published in VICE, BUTT, Gayletter, INDEX, New Art Examiner, The Huffington Post, and others.

As former Vice President of the Bob Mizer Foundation, he was responsible for the first-ever exhibitions of Mizer’s work and he produced several publications highlighting the artist’s photography and films.

He appears in the Netflix documentary Circus of Books by Rachel Mason, and Adam Baran’s 2022 mini-doc Trade Center.

As an independent publisher, he has produced several books, zines, and editions of his art as well as that of other artists and writers – including a series of artists books titled Pictures and Words, and the true-sex chapbook series Straight To Hell (aka The Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts) which he’s edited and published since 1989.

• Trade Center •

Directed by Adam Baran
Based on: “The Towers of Cum & Horndogs of Yore” written by Billy Miller
Voices: Billy Miller, Chris, Dale Corvino, Joe, Rick
Cinematographer: Daniel Lam
Editor: Colin Fitzpatrick
Producer: Adam Baran & Ethan Weinstock
Original Score: Mike Brun
Billy Miller Interview recorded at MSB Studios by Recording Engineer Michael Sackler-Berner
Sound Designer and Re-recording Mixer: Connor Donahue
Colorist: Ben Federman
Main Title Design: Mikey Harmon

Followed by Q&A