The article reports that 'The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939,' a major international exhibition of queer art, is currently on view at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. Curated by art historian Jonathan D. Katz, the show features around 350 works from over 100 lenders, including private collectors and major museums, and runs through July 26. Katz notes that no other institution in the world has agreed to host the exhibition, citing widespread refusals from venues in the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia.
This matters because the exhibition tackles the historically fraught and politically charged subject of queer identity in art, a topic Katz describes as 'the third rail of the art realm.' By presenting works from 1869 to 1939, the show challenges binary thinking about gender and sexuality and highlights how art expressed identities that language could not yet name. The exhibition's difficulty finding a venue underscores ongoing institutional reluctance to engage with queer art, even as it offers a groundbreaking, international perspective on the birth of homosexual identity and the impact of colonialism and fascism on sexual prejudice.