Two new art exhibitions are spotlighting Black queer history amid intensifying government censorship and threats to federal arts funding. “In the Life: Black Queerness—Looking Back, Moving Forward” at the Carr Center in Detroit presents an 80-year survey of Black queer culture, opening with LeRoy Foster’s 1945 self-portrait “Martini Marti” and featuring works by Zanele Muholi, April Bey, and Pamela Sneed. Co-curated by Patrick Burton and Wayne Northcross, the show is produced by Mighty Real/Queer Detroit and will be part of the Detroit Queer Biennial in June 2026. A second exhibition, “The Gay Harlem Renaissance,” runs from October 10 through March at the New York Historical Museum in Manhattan, curated by Allison Robinson, highlighting queer contributions to the Harlem Renaissance through artifacts, artworks, and archival materials.
These exhibitions matter because they assert the critical role of art in preserving marginalized histories at a time when federal grants to arts organizations are being canceled and museum works censored. By centering Black queer lives and legacies, the shows push back against efforts to erase or rewrite history, demonstrating how curators and artists act as custodians of memory. The exhibitions also underscore the ongoing vitality of community-driven institutions like the Carr Center and Mighty Real/Queer Detroit in sustaining cultural narratives that mainstream funding and political forces threaten to suppress.