ART AFTER STONEWALL

ART AFTER STONEWALL, 1969–1989

Hailed by ARTnews as one of the best and most important exhibitions of the decade, Art after Stonewall celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising and the impact on the art world of the LGBTQ liberation movement that followed. Below is an excerpt from the acclaimed catalogue of the same name that accompanies the exhibition. It is written by Jonathan Weinberg, guest curator, critic at the Yale School of Art, and curator and director of research at the Maurice Sendak Foundation; and Anna Conlan, curator and exhibition manager at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz.

There were no plans for rebellion in the early morning of June 28, 1969. It all began with a routine police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a Mafia-run gay bar on Christopher Street in New York City. Like so many times before, the police expected to line up an acquiescent group of homosexuals and issue summonses. But instead they encountered resistance from the patrons, who were tired of being harassed. Among the group were the transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson and the artist Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, who later described his fellow resisters as “street rats . . . Puerto Rican, Black, Northern and Southern whites. ‘Debby the Dyke’ and a Chinese queen named ‘Jade East.’ The sons and daughters of postal workers, welfare mothers, cab drivers, mechanics, and nurses’ aides.” As the historian David Carter puts it, “the most marginal groups of the gay community fought the hardest.” Carter vividly describes how the violence spilled into the street and then a “general assault now began on the Stonewall Inn using anything and everything the crowd outside could get its hands on: garbage, garbage cans, pieces of glass, fire, bricks, cobblestones, and an improvised battering ram.”

At the time, no one in the group imagined they were making history. Lanigan-Schmidt, when interviewed for this catalog, said they just wanted to be left alone to dance slow with each other. But those acts of resistance by drag queens, nellies, and dykes—that is, those who were among America’s “most neglected children”—marked what historian Martin Duberman has called “the birth of the modern gay and lesbian political movement” and would become “an empowering symbol of global proportions.” [ . . . .]

Of course, the LGBTQ civil rights movement did not begin with Stonewall. It has its roots in the homophile movements that began before World War II in Europe, and in the United States in the 1950s. Such courageous organizations as the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis forged new paths towards recognition. There were even comparable protests against police harassment of homosexuals in the late 1950s and 1960s in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. What made Stonewall different was not the riots themselves—although they were certainly larger and more violent than anything that came before—but the decision by LGBTQ activists to mark the anniversary of the rebellion in what was to become an annual march in cities throughout the country. As Christopher Reed’s essay in [the exhibition] catalogue suggests, acts of representation helped crystallize the shift in consciousness that Stonewall triggered. Significantly, when Los Angeles inaugurated its own Gay Pride march in 1970, it was called Christopher Street West. In time, all across the country and indeed the world, various LGBTQ civil rights groups took up Stonewall as part of their nomenclature.

Yet if Stonewall looms large in queer history and the struggle for equal rights internationally, you would hardly know it in the New York art world, at least during the first decade that followed the rebellion. Much has been written on the impact of the LGBTQ movement on American society, and yet fifty years after Stonewall, key artists in that story and their works remain little known.

IMAGES: Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, Allegory of the Stonewall Riot (Statue of Liberty) Fighting for Drag Queen, Husband and Home, 1969. Foil, plastic wrap, pipe cleaners, linoleum, glitter, acrylic paint, acrylic floor shine, food coloring, staples, Magic marker, wire, printed material, found objects, and other media. Columbus Museum of Art: Museum Purchase, Derby Fund.

Cathy Cade, Christopher Street West, LA: None Of Us Is Free Until All Of Us Are Free, 1972. Digital print. 16 x 11 inches (40.64 x 27.94 cm). © Cathy Cade, Courtesy of the artist.

Diana Davies, Gay Rights Demonstration, Albany, NY, 1971, 1971. Digital print 14 x 11 inches (35.56 x 27.94 cm). Photo by Diana Davies/© The New York Public Library/Art Resource, NY.

FRIENDS OF ART AFTER STONEWALL, 1969-1989

Honorary Exhibition Chair: Jim Obergefell

Radical Sponsors Jeff Chaddock & Mark Morrow Envisage Wealth Tom W. Davis Equitas Health Prizm Lynn Greer & Stevie Walton and the Women’s Collective John & Michaella Havens and Parker Havens & Dean Panik, in honor of Barbara Havens Kidder Family Endowment Fund for Contemporary Art The Charles Kleibacker Endowed Fund for Excellence D. Scott Owens & Kevin Kowalski Harlan Robins & Shawn Shear Dickinson Wright PLLC John L. Wirchanski

Crusader Sponsors Beth Crane & Richard McKee Sarah & Dan Kay The Manley Family Meara & Matt Scantland

Champion Sponsor Loann W. Crane Paul Feeney & Dr. Chad Braun Lee Lochtefeld Peg Mativi & Donald Dick Jane P. Mykrantz & Kiehner Johnson Puffin Foundation West, Ltd. Corde Robinson Alan & Peg Scantland Danielle & George Skestos

Activist Sponsors David F. Cooke The Gravity Project, Kaufman Development Mary Jo Hudson & Dr. Lynn Wallich Wayne Lawson & Bill Mitchell The Legacy Fund of The Columbus Foundation Jeffrey Mackey Jim Obergefell Gerry Rodriguez & Joshua Schonauer Michael Smithson Seanna & Matt Walter

Advocate Sponsors Lucy Ackley & Robert Collier Ben Addison Steven Anderson Randy Arndt & Jeff Baker Black Out & Proud Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority Jodi Cooley & Jo Hickman Lisa & Tom Courtice Carole Dale Susanne Dotson Sheryl & Steven Ellcessor Kathy Eng Eryn & Rick Grady Tom Grote & Rick Neal Bruce Harkey & Roger Foreman Joe E. Heimlich & James H. Hodnett Rebecca & Sebastian Ibel Wendy & Chris Johnson Catherine & Steve Kennedy Monica & Doug Kridler Nancy & Tom Lurie Nannette & George Maciejunes Gabriel Mastin Brian McLaughlin & David Savoia Roger Pettry & Sharon Weiss Doug Preisse & Tim Sword Bob Roehm Foundation Fund Michelle & Pete Scantland Linda Schuler & Karla Rothan Jody & Jeff Scheiman Steve Shellabarger Melissa & Wade Smith Kim Dennis Stuckenbrock Nick Weitzel & Chris Streeter Holly & Steve Wittmann Lisa & Stuart Young

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