GLR November-December 2025

ART

We Were There

T HE EXHILARATION of visiting Queer Lens: A History of Pho tography at Los Angeles’ Getty Center begins at the museum’s front steps, which have been painted in rainbow stripes with the words “Celebrate Love” sweeping across them. Opening at a time when LGBT rights are increasingly under attack, QueerLens is described as the

division between straight and gay identi ties. In this era, protected by the cover of a scientific photograph, Eadweard Muy bridge discreetly tucked an 1887 sequence of two women kissing into his landmark se ries studying movement. In a transgressive 1891 image by Alice Austen, the artist shows herself and two female friends dressed like men. The woman in the middle

I GNACIO D ARNAUDE

QUEERLENS A History of Photography TheGe tt y Center, Los Angeles June 17–September 28, 2025

flaunts a phallic racket handle near her crotch. Next the exhibit explores the Prohibition-era “Pansy Craze, 1920–1934,” which helped make female impersonators famous. A rare 1927 image by Black photographer James Van Der Zee shows Black men wearing feminine attire. Here we also see cel ebrated photographers Cecil Beaton’s and Man Ray’s portrait of Marcel Duchamp dressed as his female alter ego Rrose Sélavy. Duchamp, a heterosexual artist, was flaunting how cool it was to be “in the know” about modern trends.

first major exhibition in the U.S. to explore the full sweep of photographic history through a distinctly LGBT perspective. The show’s curator, Paul Martineau, is aware of its importance when he declares: “This show tells a powerful story of queer resilience and power.” After its introduction nearly 200 years ago, the immediacy and accessibility of photography soon made it a vital tool for marginalized people, fostering the emergence of homosocial, homoerotic, and openly homosexual imagery long before main

“Hiding in Plain Sight, 1935– 1949” includes Weegee’s The Gay Deceiver (1939), a striking image of a young man in drag being arrested. He smiles, unafraid, and lifts his skirt gleefully, a profound assertion of queer resilience at a time of cruel criminalization. The 1930s and ’40s introduced photo booths and the Po laroid Land Camera, which pro vided LGBT people with privacy to capture moments of intimacy. This section includes a glorious photo booth picture of two men kissing as a beautiful, yet fragile, reminder of a measure of social progress. “Rise of the Gay Liberation Movement, 1950–1980” opens in the period when the notion that gay people might have infiltrated the U.S. State Department led to the fir ings of some 5,000 people. Around the same time, the first homophile groups were founded to advocate for gay rights, while also creating a sense of community through events

stream culture dared to acknowl edge it. Queer Lens features more than 270 works by 157 photogra phers, spanning from the mid-19th century to the present and tracing the ways in which photography has documented, shaped, and ampli fied the complex narratives of gen der, sexuality, and self-expression. These are some highlights of the ex hibition, which extends across nine chronological sections. The earliest portion, “Homoso cial Culture and Romantic Relation ships, 1810–1868,” explores the social acceptability of intimacy be tween people of the same gender in the early 19th century, when “Boston Marriage” was an accepted term to describe two unmarried women who lived together. In this section, an 1810s cut-paper silhouette depicts two women surrounded by inter twined strands of their hair. Nearby, a portrait of Frances Clayton depicts one of the hundreds of women who

Tim Walker. Alexander McQueen with Skull and Cigarettes , 1970.

and publications. Fred W. McDarrah’s stirring 1966 photo Mat tachine Society “Sip-In” Julius’ Bar, New York, NY captures a moment when, following the law, a bartender refused service to a group of gay men. Diana Davis’ dazzling portrayal of the Gay Liberation Front’s 1969 march on Times Square and Arthur Tress’ joyful depiction of activists at the first gay Pride parade capture the revolution that ensued after the 1969 Stonewall Riots. “The AIDS Crisis, 1981–1996” includes Therese Frare’s

dressed as men to fight during the Civil War. A highlight is the outrageous 1870 portrait of Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton, gay men who performed on stage together as Fanny and Stella. The next section, “Language and Identity, 1869–1919,” cov ers the period after Karl Maria Kertbeny introduced the terms “homosexual” and “heterosexual,” marking the beginning of a Ignacio Darnaude, an art scholar and lecturer, is currently developing the docuseries Hiding in Plain Sight: Breaking the Queer Code in Art .

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