How, in this era of pride parades and rainbow shop windows, can I explain why the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art is crucial— how it is life saving? I think of Jennifer Doyle’s Queer Wallpaper, the homoerotic Warhol print which lived in the back of a night club and had never seen the walls of a museum, and of exhibitions and writings on the works of Warhol, Wood, Michelangelo, which can survive generations without mentioning the sexuality of these artists, because they would not want to get too political. Conveniently ignoring the fact that, for queer artists, every part of art and life is political, as it is for anyone whose identity exists at an odd angle to the dominant social norm. 

Queer art, historically, has lived on the edges, in coded messages and subtext, unseen or unsold. Throughout history and particularly in the late 20th century, to be queer was a matter of life and death. Queer art, therefore, was an act of reisitance, revolution, catharsis, hope. It is a way of recognizing and memorializing those who history threatens to erase. This is why a place like the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art is not just a fascinating archive of queer history and works, but serves as a haven for those whose identity has always had to be subtextual. It is a place where that which could have been burned or buried is preserved, honoring artists whose art and experiences did not get the recognition it deserved from mainstream galleries. Its very existence is political, radical, revolutionary, and it uses the works of historically marginalized artists to explore the relationship between art and politics, creativity and justice, beauty and revolution. 

The Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, previously the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, had grassroot beginnings in the SoHo loft of founders Charles W. Leslie and Fritz Lohman in 1969, in the wake of the Stonewall riots that kicked off the queer civil rights movement. The couple collected homoerotic art objects from friends and aquaintances  and began displaying them in their home; as popularity exceeded their expectations, the curated more shows, eventually establishing the Leslie Lohman Foundation in Gay Art in 1987. They collected ‘queer art’, which originally referred to homoerrotic art, but grew to encompass any art which dealt with themes of the queer experience, such as social justice, politics, romance, or religion. 

In the subsequent decades, as the AIDS epidemic ravaged the queer community, the Leslie Lohman collection took on even more dire significance. As HIV/AIDS wiped out almost an entire generation of artists, Leslie and Lohman enacted a crucial role for the queer community for generations to come by rescuing the works of artists killed by the disease. During this time the couple saved upwards of 80 works from the estates of families that would have disregarded or even destroyed the homoerotic works out of shame or ignorance. 

The collection of art rescued during this time is characterised by a rawness, a roughness, that sets it apart from more mainstream collections. Because of the danger and shame that permeates queer life, particularly in the twentieth century when queerness was associated with disease and death, queer artists often worked in unique and dire circumstances, using their art as a means of escape and introspection, a way to explore the desires, relationships, and identities that were vilified and rejected by society at large. As a result, a great deal of the art rescued by Leslie and Lohman lacks polish or conceit; it preserves the work of untrained or self-taught artists such as Edward Hochschild or Joseph Friscia, who would not have been able to sell their work to commercial galleries.. For both artists, their work was only able to be displayed after their deaths. There is something tragically hopeful about art which was created in secret or shame, never meant to be shown, finally having a place to be recognized, appreciated, seen. 

In addition to representing queer art, the Leslie Lohman Museum also actively engages in queer education and outreach in the community. Augmenting their collection of over 30,000 art objects, the Leslie Lohman has an extensive archive of queer history and research with over 3,000 volumes in their library as well as a continuous program of educational talks and lectures to engages intersectional discussion in the community. This kind of open, political, intersectional dialogue and education about art, identity, and justice is immeasurably healing for the queer community as well as the contemporary art community at large. Gonzalo Casals, executive director of the Leslie Lohman Museum addresses this purpose beautifully when he says that he hopes that the museum can serve as both “a mirror and a window. If you are a part of the community, we hope that you can see yourself and your experiences reflected on the wall. And there is nothing more empowering than seeing yourself in the walls of a museum, or seeing yourself in a work of art. It sends the message that you are not alone, you are part of a larger community. And the same if you are not a part of the community but you want to come into the museum, you are always welcome. And the art becomes, not a mirror, but a window into the other. What better way to use art as a way to start conversation, and to start exploring experiences that are lived by others.”

Although the queer civil rights movement has radically changed queer life in the 50 years since the Museum’s founding, the veneration of queer art is still vital to the LGBTQ community today as we grieve the tragedy of past years, celebrate the freedom that queer activists have fought for, and continue to use art to work towards social justice. The Leslie Lohman Museum is artistically, socially, and politically vital, as it provides an invaluable space for exploration of queer life and social justice, uplifting artists who use their platform to explore intersectional themes of queer life, inextricable from political action an revolution.

The women in Ella Kruglyanskaya’s This is a Robbery preside over empty white halls in Thomas Dane’s virtual gallery.  Closed to the public in the wake of quarantine orders around the globe, the gallery, like the streets of major cities, is eerily empty. Accessed only through photos on the gallery website, this exhibition takes on a new life.

The emptiness of the gallery in these photos, the stark white walls, and the uninterrupted doorways infuse the exhibition with a pensive, melancholy feeling, although perhaps that is enhanced by my partner practicing Chopin’s Nocturne No. 3 in the other room.  In fact, seeing the works like this, wrapped in a blanket by the window of my home, tinges the work with a new, not altogether unwelcome air of loneliness. My connection to the art here, to the elusive, imprecise female figures that trail the walls of the gallery, feels almost more intimate than it might in person. 

I think of the crowded galleries I have walked through, back when I took my proximity and physicality for granted. In some cases, I remember the clamor and footsteps of other museum-goers more than the work itself: the voyeuristic closeness of a dozen people in a room looking at the same works, and trying not to look at each other. There is a hunger that can linger in an art gallery, as viewers drift by one another, trying to stay out of view, wondering if we are being watched, all trying to find that connection with the works despite the inherent mortification of achieving (or not) that kind of intimacy in a room full of strangers. 

There is none of that here, no conversation or bodies to stand between me and the artworks. And so when I click into the image of the woman smoking (or crying?), so large on the canvas that she dwarfs the doorway next to her, I am overwhelmed by the urge to sit down at her feet and weep. Which, of course, I can’t. Perhaps Kruglyanskaya’s women would always be so inaccessible, but here on the screen, zooming in to see the details, they are both strangely close and impossibly farther away. Here I could not even imagine what it might be like to touch them, and somehow this quality affects me deeply, in this quiet, personal, virtual space. 

The formal elements of these works seem to shift as well, as they settle into this new format. Even the ways in which Kruglyanskaya plays with media, abstraction and technique in these figures becomes increasingly more complex through the screen. The weight of line, shade, and representation vary dynamically within This is a Robbery, as Kruglyanskaya scrambles stylistic hierarchies (complimenting the, perhaps more obvious, mess she makes of social and sexual hierarchies of representation.) Many of these pieces show only the suggestion or outline of the female figure, sketched in a few sparse lines, while other parts of the show are fully shaded, with filled backgrounds and comparatively precise detail. Although it is difficult to tell through the photos, some of the pieces appear to be rendered with tempera paint, but some pieces appear to have the lightness of pencil sketches, giving an elastic dynamism to figures as the weight of their line, shape, and representation varies wildly from one piece to another. Several of these female figures trail behind a painted paintbrush, rendered stylistically distinct from the rest of the piece. Here, Kruglyanskaya forefronts the idea of process, technique and material, asking the viewer how these figures were created and why, reminding us that these are made images, and forcing us to confront what that means. The interception of the screen complicates this further. The sketched, abstract strokes juxtapose detailed chiaroscuro in an uneasy coexistence which is only enhanced by the relentless two-dimensionality of the screen, which flattens indiscriminately, making the dynamic layering of line and space complex and captivating. 

The varying scale of the pieces in this exhibition also translates strangely to the online platform, drawing viewer attention to the problem and influence of photography in the way we interact with the images. While some canvases are large enough that they seem to even dwarf the doorways, other pieces seem to be drawn on scraps of paper. This is an interesting choice, creating a lot of variety and movement within the exhibition, but presents a particular challenge when it comes to capturing the experiences virtually. This exhibition is one that would keep me constantly moving— flirting with the walls to experience both the details of the tiny sketches as well as the whole of the larger canvases. To capture them all in one frame, from one vantage point, emphasizes the differences in scale; in order to see the whole of the larger canvases against the wall, the smaller pieces become unrecognizable. Likewise, in order to see the detail of the smaller works, the photographer must sacrifice any reference to the space. This, I feel, is one of the more significant sacrifices made in the transition to remote viewing: we lose that sense of space and agency, the understanding of the work in relation to our physical selves.

Of course, I wish that I was walking down the streets of London; I wish that the sounds of the city and the coolness of the gallery air could mingle with the art itself as a part of my experience, and that I could create my own path through the exhibition, stepping closer to the works, and imagining what that texture of the paint might feel like. Nothing will ever replace that feeling for me. But there is a kind of gentle intimacy fostered in a remote tour. The isolation and particularity of seeing these works on my own terms, in my own home, the ocean between us closing in as I zoom in on the photos, which adds something as well. While I await the reopening of the galleries as eagerly as anyone, I think there is something to be gained by leaning into this isolation, each of us taking a private moment with the art, in the solitude of our homes.

Curated by Zoë De Luca at the Ada Gallery 

1 February- 14 March

When I first approached the Ada, a young contemporary gallery in the heart of Trastevere, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the jarring visual experience of the space, and the show on display, Collagen Shadows. In that first moment, I thought of the shifting realities of Alice and Wonderland; I would come to realize how appropriate that was. 

The small, tilted space stands out tremendously from the cobblestone streets I had come in off, due mostly to the jarring black and white tile that dominates the room. This, combined with the angled white walls, narrowing toward the back of the one small room, creates an almost dizzying optical effect. While in other circumstances, this bold setting could detract from the art, it contributed serendipitously to the theme of the exhibition. 

  Collagen Shadows consists of six works by five different artists, inspired by the microscopic collagen clots formed in the eyeball. Not quite transparent, these clots cast shadows which dance on the edges of our vision, in the form of spots or circles, that we can just almost see. This elusive, highly subjective phenomenon epitomizes the uncertainty and mystery of perception itself. It exists in the in-between states of what we can and can not observe. Hence, my initial disorientation suddenly becomes an ideal reaction to the show, already leading me to question my own perceptions. 

It is the elusiveness here, the ambiguity, which holds these works together. The artists in this show have taken the uncertainty of our eyes— these organic, internal shadows —and turned them outward, to craft the tactile, substantive creations. The installations seem to creep around the gallery, hovering somewhere between figurative and abstract, tantalizing the viewer who can almost, but never quite, shape what they are seeing into a recognizable figure. The works in this show, although created independently by artists around the world, work together in the space to create a cohesive experience, with poignant and interconnected themes running through the visually diverse works. The ambiguous, transitional effect of the collagen shadows infuses the works with a biotic, ephemeral nature that unites the disparate artworks with a common theme.

Walking through the door, a viewer could almost trip on Exhaust, the evocative sculpture of Milan based-artist Monia Ben Hamouda. A skeletal ring of debris, with plastic tendrils reaching out from the muck, this piece hovers between life and death. The white and clear scraps twist together in a calcified circle. Upon closer inspection this creature looks as if it has grown out of a myriad of strange materials and objects, such as plastic scraps, zip ties, trash, and clear bags filled with water, all tied together around the wet-looking body of the ring, as if they were caught while drifting past. This object, instinctively organic-looking, but made out of accusingly artificial materials, speaks to the entanglement of human production and waste with the natural world. The tangled composition brings to mind plastic caught in kelp forests, bird nests made from litter, and the pale monochrome of the grey and white palette evokes the ghostliness of bleached coral. Existing somewhere between the artificial and the natural, growth and death, this piece contemplates production, waste and the simultaneous ephemerality and permanence of human and natural endeavours. 

This theme of the ambiguous, the biological, the suggestively natural combined with the unmistakably human continues with Hamouda’s second piece in the show, Prediction. The largest piece in the show, this 200 x 100 cm rectangle of bunched cloth has visceral implications. Wrinkled and twisted fabric covers wraps around itself in this piece, with a sense of movement and life made eerie by the unnatural stiffness of that which should be soft. Uneven pink and red staining associate it inextricably with the body, suggesting blood or perhaps intestines. However, the associations of white linen are strong, making it difficult to separate this organic looking object from its societally fraught medium; so the anatomical body-ness of this piece is tinged with the associations of something unequivocally manufactured, something once pure white, but now stained, hinting, again, at this idea of entropy. 

Pietro Agostoni’s Tanya stands out as particularly striking. A site specific installation made in ash, arranged into the skeletal outline of some winged creature, this piece is both ominous and irresistable. In the center of the room, the carefully arranged scraps of ash give the impression of burning or melting into the floor. Some elements, bone-like, ride up from the flatness of the ash, fluctuating between flatness and sculpture. The pieces which make up this work are deeply black, tinged around the edges with a  sticky brown: perhaps from the acid in which they were soaked before burning, or from the adhesive securing them in their shape.The scattered ash, which is almost an animal, but could easily be leaves rotting into the forest floor, evokes not just death but decay; the disturbingly cyclical nature of ephemeral life. Placed strategically next to the undead permanence of waste in Exhaust the works here contemplate the relationship between life and death, bodies and nature, fossilization and decay. 

With these six, mostly abstract works, Zoë De Luca has curated a captivating biome which invites us to contemplate our own perceptions, and explore that which is just on the edges of what we can see or understand. The works in this show take an incredibly subjective and unique human experience, and shape it into something tactile, emotive and tantalizingly ambiguous.