LGBTQIA+ REPRESENTATION

The artistic sphere has long been a space where artists have unpacked and made sense of issues dealing with sexual identity. From deeply personal narratives to larger commentaries that speak to collective experiences, their art functions as testimony, lending visibility and an outlet for self-acceptance. The works included in this portfolio explore the interior and exterior circumstances faced by members of the LGBTQIA+ community from the perspective of artists that have encountered these issues in their own lives. Themes addressed include national antiLGBT policies, religious dogma, the intersectionality between race/culture and sexuality, the AIDS epidemic, and the embracing of countercultures.

Nina Chanel Abney (American, b. 1982)

Nina Chanel Abney’s playful canvases come together with the more serious themes upon which they are based to create a complex visual conversation. In the series The Great Escape, to which this work belongs, Abney creates a utopian world in which queer Black figures can exist peacefully beyond the white gaze and polarized urban American life. These idyllic scenes of pastoral leisure activity reimagine the Black relationship to nature, the city, and the ideals of heteronormativity.

Accession Number: 2020.1.25

Title: Helen with the Drip

Date: 2020

Medium: Acrylic and spray-paint on canvas

Rights: © Nina Chanel Abney. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

KEYWORDS

queer-theory; postcolonial; leisure; Black; intersectional; urban; critical race theory; LGBTQ. VIEW

OBJECT FILE

Ria Brodell (American, b. 1977)

Ria Brodell disrupts traditional narratives and offers multifaceted ways in which to experience the concept of devotion. While Brodell’s art stems from personal experience, their works allow for a nuanced rumination on gender and sexuality from both historical and contemporary contexts. This work is from the artist’s series, Butch Heroes, and presents highly detailed paintings of historical subjects who challenged gender norms via the structure of Catholic prayer cards.

Accession Number: 2018.5

Title: Butch Heroes: Olga Nikolaevna Tsuberbiller 18851975 Russia

Date: 2014

Medium: Gouache on paper

Rights: Image courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas

KEYWORDS

prayer cards; Catholicism; transgender; visibility; history; persecution; gender-nonconforming; LGBTQ.

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David Hockney (British, b. 1937)

Unlike many of his Pop contemporaries, David Hockney drew his subject matter more from his own life, friends, and literature than from comics, ads, and other popular culture sources. In his earlier works, the artist often included references to literature and homosexual themes. In this work, Hockney presents an intimate portrait of his friend Joe MacDonald, his first friend to die from AIDS. In 1979 while Hockney was working in New York, he spent a lot of time with Joe during which he likely created this portrait.

Accession Number: 1996.5

Title: Joe with Green Window

Date: 1979

Medium: Lithograph on Rivers BFK paper

Rights: © David Hockney / Tyler Graphics Ltd.

KEYWORDS

AIDS; epidemic; STI; death; mortality; friends and family; acceptance; stigma; LGBTQ.

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Zanele

Muholi (South African, b. 1972)

Visual activist, Zanele Muholi, grew up in apartheid-enforced townships in South Africa during which police and apartheid administrators utilized photography to surveil and identify individuals. They use their art to create a platform for the South African LGBTQIA+ community and advocate on their behalf. In the black-andwhite portraits of lesbians, women, and trans men that comprise Muholi’s ongoing Faces and Phases series, Muholi highlights the agency of the participants by providing an outlet for selfrepresentation.

Accession Number: 2014.1.28

Title: Sindi Shabalala, Parktown, Johannesburg

Date: 2010

Medium: Silver gelatin print

Rights: © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of the artist and Yancy Richardson Gallery

KEYWORDS

transgender; politics; laws; South Africa; portraiture; equity; self-representation; photography; LGBTQ.

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Cobie Moules (American, b. 1980)

Cobie Moules is a transgender artist whose landscape paintings respond to memories of time spent out in nature with his family as a child. His relationship to nature is seen through the lens of Christian ideologies found in the art historical concept of the sublime, as practiced by artists associated with the Hudson River School during the nineteenth century. The sublime humbles man before the power of nature and, by extension, God. In a subversive act, Moules reclaims natural spaces by filling them with a multitude of selfportraits.

Accession Number: 2013.34.10

Title: Untitled (Playground)

Date: 2009

Medium: Oil on canvas

Rights: Image courtesy of the artist and Carroll and Sons, Boston

KEYWORDS

transgender; Christianity; Hudson River School; sublime; nature; multiplicity; hypervisibility; LGBTQ.

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Marie Laurencin (French, 1885-1935)

Marie Laurencin was part of the artistic and intellectual community of the Parisian avantgarde during the turn of the twentieth century. Her bisexuality has been largely overlooked by early scholars of her work and call into question possible homoerotic interpretations of her work—a fantasy world almost solely inhabited by women. Despite exhibiting with the Cubists, she developed an individual style characterized by graceful images of female figures rendered in pastel hues with dark eyes and hair.

Accession Number: 1996.25

Title: Untitled: Two Women

Date: ca. 1935

Medium: Watercolor on paper

KEYWORDS

bisexuality; feminist theory; portraiture; feminine; avant-garde; ballet dancers; watercolor; fantasy; LGBTQ. VIEW

OBJECT FILE

Jeffrey Gibson (American, b. 1972)

Jeffrey Gibson grew up struggling to find a place of belonging, as his Native heritage and homosexuality stirred feelings of anger over existing on the periphery of mainstream society. This work intersects Gibson’s communities through the use of glass Crow beads and silver jingles found on ceremonial powwow regalia. He also incorporates lyrics taken from the anthems of gay club culture during the 80s and 90s. This work references George Michaels’ “Freedom! ‘90”, a song about finding one’s path and truth.

Accession Number: 2017.6.29

Title: I Don’t Belong To You, You Don’t Belong To Me

Date: 2016

Medium: Glass beads, tin jingles, artificial sinew, acrylic felt, canvas over wood panel

Rights: Image courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California

KEYWORDS

indigenous; powwow; counterculture; gay club culture; music; anger; materiality; anthems; LGBTQ. VIEW

OBJECT FILE

Jess T. Dugan (American, b. 1986)

This photograph is a part of a series by Jess T. Dugan titled Every Breath We Drew. Across this series, the artist explores intimacy, desire, and constructions of masculinity. In this photograph, Dugan introduces the subjects, Erica and Krista, in their home. The couple appears together and united, but they are also presented as distinct individuals. Through these lenses, Dugan considers the intersections between private and public connections.