Cruising the Collection: Queer Images at the MCA
In late May, protests and riots erupted across the United States in response to the murder of George Floyd, a black man, by white Minneapolis Police Department officer Derek Chauvin.[1] Much media coverage, political rhetoric, and public discourse has been devoted to debating which forms of resistance are effective at creating lasting change. We can look to LGBTQ history to see how collective actions such as riots in response to injustice and inequity have affected long-term change. In fact, the now-ubiquitous Pride began as a riot. On June 28, 1969, the New York Police Department raided the historic gay bar the Stonewall Inn. Queer people were routinely harassed by the police during this era, and raids were not uncommon. Yet this time, the patrons fought back. The ensuing six days of protests and riots are credited as the beginning of the LGBTQ civil rights movement.
LGBTQ+ people have been persecuted throughout history for deviating from heteronormative society. In the 20th century, these oppressive conditions necessitated the creation of clandestine networks of bars such as the Stonewall Inn, bathhouses, bookstores, private homes, public parks, and other safe spaces where queer people could connect. In parallel, codes were developed which allowed LGBTQ+ people to identify each other in public without disclosing their identity more broadly. To cruise is to learn these codes and traverse these networks in search of love, lust, and kinship; thus, cruising is way of life for queer people.
Because of the bravery of LGBTQ activists like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who were among the first to resist at Stonewall, things have gotten better for LGBTQ people in the United States and many other parts of the world.[2] Art has played a role in making the LGBTQ community more visible to broader society; many queer artists seek to rectify the repression of representation of LGBTQ people through their work. Photography in particular has proven to be a potent medium for documenting queer life.
On this essayistic cruise we’ll take a look at some of these image-makers in the MCA Collection and the subjects of their attention. As part of the MCA’s holdings, each of these artworks was, at one point or another, purchased by or gifted to the museum. By keeping these works in the collection, the MCA asserts their cultural value and artistic importance. While queerness may not be a major theme of the MCA Collection, as with cruising in real life, wonderful things can be found in the niches.
Featured images

Hal Fischer, American, b. 1950
Street Fashion: Jock, from the series Gay Semiotics, 1977/2016
Carbon pigment prints on Canson Photo Gloss Premium RC paper in handmade case with denim covering
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, gift of Albert A. Robin by exchange, 2015.12.2

Hal Fischer, American, b. 1950
Street Fashion: Jock, from the series Gay Semiotics, 1977/2016
Carbon pigment prints on Canson Photo Gloss Premium RC paper in handmade case with denim covering
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, gift of Albert A. Robin by exchange, 2015.12.20

Hal Fischer, American, b. 1950
Street Fashion: Jock, from the series Gay Semiotics, 1977/2016
Carbon pigment prints on Canson Photo Gloss Premium RC paper in handmade case with denim covering
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, gift of Albert A. Robin by exchange, 2015.12.7
We begin our journey in San Francisco's Castro and Haight-Ashbury neighborhoods in the late 1970s. The streets are prowled by Jocks, Hippies, and Cowboys—or at least these are some of the street fashion styles and archetypes Hal Ficher (American, b. 1960) identified in his seminal Gay Semiotics series. The suite of 24 photographs decodes the signs and symbols Fischer's community of primarily gay white cisgender men used to discreetly signal their sexual interests. For example, in text handwritten over one of his photographs, Fischer noted that “a blue handkerchief placed in the right hip pocket serves notice that the wearer desires to play the passive role during sexual intercourse”—and conversely—“a blue handkerchief placed in the left hip pocket indicates that the wearer will assume the active or traditional male role during sexual contact.”

Robert Mapplethorpe, American, 1946–1989
Thomas and Amos, 1987
Gelatin silver print
Sheet: 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50 cm); framed: 33 1/8 × 28 1/2 × 2 in. (84.1 × 72.4 × 5.1 cm)
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Gift from The Howard and Donna Stone Collection, 2002.43
Flipping coasts—in the 1970s and 80s, Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946–1989) scandalized the art world with his photographs of subjects traditionally only visible in gay pornography. Mapplethorpe recruited his models in the leather bars and sex clubs he frequented in New York City. It's clear from his oeuvre that Mapplethorpe had a particular interest in Black men, such as the titular subject in his photograph Thomas and Amos
Mapplethorpe intended for his images of black men to be celebratory. However, he's been criticized for reifying harmful stereotypes of Black men in his images. Artist Isaac Julien (British, b. 1960) and historian Kobena Mercer wrote, “Mapplethorpe appropriates the conventions of porn's racialized codes of representation, and by abstracting its stereotypes into 'art,' he makes racism's phantasms of desire respectable.” [3]
Featured images

Jack Pierson, American, b. 1960
The Call Back, 1995
Chromogenic development print
30 × 20 in. (76.2 × 50.1 cm)
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Restricted gift of The Dave Hokin Foundation, 1995.119.1

Jack Pierson, American, b. 1960
Palm Springs, 1990
Chromogenic development print
30 × 20 in. (76.2 × 50.1 cm)
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Restricted gift of The Dave Hokin Foundation, 1995.119.7

Jack Pierson, American, b. 1960
Ocean Drive, 1985
Chromogenic development print
30 × 20 in. (76.2 × 50.1 cm)
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Restricted gift of The Dave Hokin Foundation, 1995.119.6
Similarly to Mapplethorpe, artist and fellow New Yorker Jack Pierson (American, b. 1960) often had relationships with his models. However unlike Mapplethorpe, his subjects were more often friends and lovers first, and models second. At age 23, Pierson took a road trip from New York City to Florida, where he ended up broke and stranded for six months. During his accidental tropical furlough, Pierson began documenting casual encounters with friends and hookups, as well as the lush landscape of the region. Pierson's hazy photographs from his Angel Youth series—such as Palm Springs

Nan Goldin, American, b. 1953
Joey at the Love Ball, NYC, 1991
Chromogenic development print
Framed: 31 7/8 × 44 5/8 in. (81 × 113.3 cm)
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Gift of Anne D. Koch, 2014.45
Photographer Nan Goldin (American, b. 1953) has a similarly diaristic practice, saying “I don't select people in order to photograph them, I photograph directly from my life.” [4] In Joey At The Love Ball, NYC
Featured images

Wolfgang Tillmans, German, b. 1968
Rachel Auburn, 1995
Chromogenic development print
22 × 15 in. (55.9 × 38.1 cm)
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Gift of Martin Fluhrer, 2011.49

Wolfgang Tillmans, German, b. 1968
Princess Julia, 1995
Chromogenic development print
22 × 15 in. (55.9 × 38.1 cm)
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Gift of Martin Fluhrer, 2011.50
A few years later and across the pond, photographer Wolfgrang Tillmans (German, b. 1968) created a series of portraits depicting London's premiere female DJs. The London club scene of the mid-90s was dominated by the sounds of acid house, and served as a refuge for queer people and other partygoers in an otherwise conservative political era. Tillman's Princess Julia and Rachel Aubern

Wolfgang Tillmans, German, b. 1968
The Cock (Kiss), 2002
Chromogenic development print
24 × 20 1/8 in. (61 × 51.1 cm)
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Joseph and Jory Shapiro Fund by exchange, 2006.15
Many of Wolfgang Tillmans' iconic images come from the artist's engagement with the London club scene. The Cock (Kiss) (2002) was shot during the queer electroclash party of the same name at The Ghetto, a club in central London. Apart from its visceral beauty, the image gained notoriety for being slashed and vandalized while on view at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. Speaking on the incident, Tillmans said, “Beauty is of course always political, as it describes what is acceptable or desirable in society. That is never fixed, and always needs reaffirming and defending.” [5] The Cock (Kiss) was also shared widely on social media in the wake of the Pulse nightclub attack in 2016. In the attack, 49 people (many of whom were queer clubgoers) were massacred in Orlando by a young man who had reportedly become enraged at the sight of two men kissing at a bar in Miami the week prior. By lending visibility to the subcultural activities of queer people, Tillmans—like all of the artists discussed here—does the vital work of normalizing queer life for a broader audience.
Featured images

Isaac Julien, British, b. 1960
After Mazatlan, 1999/2000
Black-and-white photogravure on Arches paper
22 × 30 in. (55.9 × 76.2 cm)
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Gift from The Howard and Donna Stone Collection, 2002.37
Back stateside—After Mazaltan (1999/2000) is a photographic print by artist Isaac Julien (British, b. 1960), made while he shot his three-channel video The Long Road to Mazeltan

Mickalene Thomas (American, b
Another artist working through the intersections of race and sexuality is Mickalene Thomas (American, b. 1971), who is best known for her elaborately layered collages and empowering images of Black women. Portraits such as A Moment’s Pleasure

Wu Tsang, still from Mishima in Mexico, 2012.
High-definition video projection (color, sound) and programmed LED light installation, unique.
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, restricted gift of the Buddy Taub Foundation, 2013.35. © 2012 Wu Tsang
Wu Tsang's (American, b. 1982) video, Mishima In Mexico, tells the story of a pair of actor-screenwriters attempting to adapt queer novelist Yukio Mishima's book The Thirst For Love

Collier Schorr, American, b. 1963
Where are you Going?, 2013
Pigment print
Sheet: 60 1/4 × 41 1/2 in. (153 × 105.4 cm); framed: 69 1/2 × 50 1/2 in. (176.5 × 128.3 cm)
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Gift of Mary and Earle Ludgin by exchange, 2014.39
Collier Schorr (American, b. 1963) is concerned with the problematic way in which women are “packaged and sold back to women” in popular culture. Throughout her career, Schorr rarely photographed women, tending instead to flip the script on the storied “male gaze” by selecting epicene young men as her models. [7] More recently, Schorr saw “power in taking back the ability to represent femininity as a multi-layered identity.” [8] Her photograph Where are you Going?

Paul Mpagi Sepuya, American, b. 1982
Darkroom (1990407)_, 2017
Archival pigment print
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, gift of Mary and Earle Ludgin by exchange, 2018.25
Paul Mpagi Sepuya (American, b. 1982) also questions the politics of the photoshoot. His work expands upon histories of queer studio portraiture by artists such as Mapplethorpe. Sepuya's images deconstructs the photoshoot by both revealing the mechanics of photography—the camera, tripod, and set—and unsettling the traditional relationship between artist, subject, and viewer. At first glance, <i>Darkroom (_1990407)i

Salman Toor
The Bar on East 13th Street, 2019
Oil on panel
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, promised gift of Keith Fox and Tom Keyes, PG2019.3
We conclude our cruise at the club. Salman Toor's (b. Lahore, Pakistan 1985) painting The Bar on East 13th Street
Manet and Toor’s paintings reveal a gulf between the gender politics of the 19th century and today, and all of the aforementioned images are glimpses into a timeline of shifting cultural attitudes towards LGBTQ+ people. While we celebrate Pride this month, we recognize how far we’ve come—but only in tandem with an understanding that our work is not done. Trans and gender non-confirming people, as well as Black, indigenous, and people of color continue to face systemic financial, carceral, and interpersonal oppression.
The LGBTQ+ community knows better than most that collective action is the only path to change. Some of us may still be confined to our homes because of the COVID-19 pandemic, others may already be out in the streets in solidarity with #blacklivesmatter—either way, this month we can show our Pride by doing everything we can to support the Black Lives Matter and Black Trans Lives Matter movements.
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[1] - In addition to George Floyd, protestors were catalyzed by the recent high-profile murders of Breonna Taylor by the Louisville Police Department and Ahmaud Arbery by white vigilantes.
[2] - According to the 2019 ILGA World State-Sponsored Homophobia report, being LGBTQ+ is still criminalized to varying degrees in 70 countries.
[3] - Mercer, Kobena, “Black Masculinity and the Sexual Politics of Race: True Confessions: A Discourse on Images of Black Male Sexuality with Isaac Julien” from the book Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies.
[4] - Goldin, Nan. The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. New York, NY: Aperture Foundation, 1986.
[5] - Tillmans, Wolfgang. "Wolfgang Tillmans and His (Almost) All Consuming Eye." AMERICAN SUBURB X. May 18, 2020. https://americansuburbx.com/2015/07/wolfgang-tillmans-lecture-2011.html.
[6] - Martin, Patricia. "Mickalene Thomas: Layers of Black Womanhood through an Artist's Eyes." The Glam Femme. May 15, 2019. https://www.theglamfemme.com/mickalene-thomas-layers-of-black-womanhood-through-an-artists-eyes/.
[7] - Gavin, Francesca. "Collier Schorr: Still Chasing the First High." Dazed. February 24, 2014. https://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/18446/1/collier-schorrs-androgynous-youth.
[8] - Ibid.
[9] - boychild is Wu Tsang's partner and frequent collaborator. The pair presented Moved by the Motion on the MCA stage in 2014.