Living in downtown Brooklyn, I did a double take on the planned Google Maps trip to Bedford Park in the Bronx to see a band show called strange love at the Lehman College Art Gallery. The 1.5-hour transit with multiple transfers gave me plenty of time to wonder if I was wasting an entire day seeing an exhibit that, by its title alone, could easily tap into the existing wave of queer navel-gazing white. through egocentric portraits accessorized with monstera plants and exaggerated color palettes.
But upon entering the gallery, I was presented with an array of 2D works by about four dozen LGBTQ+ artists from all walks of life. Not only did the exhibition content shake my inherent cynicism, but the deliberate considerations of materiality, scale, and craftsmanship underscored the truth that homosexuality is something both visually and emotionally beautiful.
Right: Clifford Prince King, “Just the Two of Us” (2019), archival pigment print on Canson rag, 24 x 16 inches (image courtesy of the artist and STARS Gallery)
I was immediately drawn to the photography of Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. and Clifford Prince King, two black queer artists whose practices challenge preconceptions surrounding black masculinity by imbuing their subjects with a softness and vulnerability. specific. Brown Jr.’s photos play with the boundaries of privacy and intimacy through partially obscured portraits and unconventional angles, implying a necessary voyeurism in the truth of darkness that defies stereotypes. King’s subjects are set in domestic spaces such as the kitchen in “Just the Two of Us” (2019), with treasured Easter eggs such as a giraffe-themed teapot, and hints of a bedroom in ” Growing Each Day” (2019). This domesticity is not rooted in confinement, but rather in optimism and gentleness as a means of navigating the life of an HIV-positive queer black man.
Right: Frederico Uribe, “Hug” (2007) detail, laces and pins, 72 x 54 inches (image courtesy of the artist and Adelson Gallery)
Mexican-Bolivian artist Adriana Elena Bravo Morales redirects affection as a mode of resistance in “Beso de Chola/Chola Kiss” (2016), an image of herself and fellow collaborating artist Ivanna Terraza, two auto -identified cholitas (Indigenous Bolivian women who wear traditional clothes), kissing passionately in the public streets of Bolivia to the surprise and shock of passers-by. Bravo Morales wanted to reject the characterization of the cholita as a matriarchal figure devoid of sexual desire, stating that the kiss between two indigenous women in traditional dress is “powerful”.
I was too very taken by the collage “Hug” (2007) by Colombian artist Federico Uribe, entirely composed of pins and laces of colors that I didn’t even know the laces came in. Uribe portrayed two figures entwined, one with closed eyes while the other faces the viewer with one eye open and unclear emotions, complete with a pulsating aura of dark red radiating from them. The embrace coupled with the symbolic use of shoelaces emphasizes an inherent message of interdependence.
A poignant addition to the exhibit was the work of Theodoor Grimes (@ggggrimes), a self-taught black trans artist from the Bronx who intentionally focuses on queer people of color living “happy, beautiful, colorful, sexy lives” in response to critical of their work white queer people who felt excluded. Grimes’ digital painting “Date Night Distancing, August 9” (2021) highlights a North African cisgender lesbian and her West African trans lesbian girlfriend having a date from home, rendered in sunset hues of tropical sunshine that I desperately need in the form of an eyeshadow palette. It’s honestly a breath of fresh air to see queer people of color enjoying life and having fun without the attached trauma woven through the narrative.
I could get poetic about the beautiful photos of Tommy Kha and Sunil Gupta and the exquisite textile work of Tura Oliveira, but I want to take a moment to appreciate the genesis of this exhibit. I had the chance to speak with Queer Love’s curator and executive director of the Lehman College Art Gallery, Bartholomew (Bart) Bland, who told me that the exhibit was conceptualized in 2019 to better support queer students at the university until the quarantine stop everything.
Bland curated the exhibit to prioritize romance and affection over overt themes of sexuality when it came to the gallery’s audience of K-12 students, but the additional exposure, Queer Love: Affection and Romance in Contemporary Art (February 14-April 6) at La MaMa Galleria in Lower Manhattan, was able to incorporate these riskier elements and the epitome of “edge of downtown.”
Bland was concerned about the show’s turnout, saying a number of people had said to him “oh, are you in the Bronx? I don’t think we’ll get there,” or any such variation. “And I said, ‘Well, there’s 2 million people living in the Bronx,'” Bland told me. So far, many viewers have been Lehman College students, especially those in Gen Z and younger, who may question or seek to assert their own homosexuality on campus.
One element of the show that was greatly missed was the inclusion of sculpture and installation work. I just think that something as exuberant and fluid and invigorating as queer love cannot and should not be contained within the wall or the four rigid corners, and I would have liked to see more dimensional manifestations of those feelings intense in the interests of taking up physical space rather than just pulling us to the perimeters of the gallery.
Nonetheless, it was certainly worth the trip, and I implore everyone to get to Bedford Park and see the show which runs until April 28th. Bronx Repertory Company exhibition related performances will be will take place in the gallery from From Wednesday 26 April to Friday 28 April activating the space through four pieces inspired by the works of the show.
