Queer Lens: A History of Photography
June 17 – September 28, 2025
Getty Center, Los Angeles
In all my years visiting Los Angeles’ Getty Museum, I’ve never experienced the kind of electricity I felt heading to this exhibit. Conversations buzzed in anticipation of “Queer Lens: A History of Photography.” When the tram doors opened and the crowd caught sight of the museum’s front steps painted in rainbow stripes with the words “CELEBRATE LOVE” sweeping across them, some visitors broke down in tears.
That moment was only the prologue to the emotional and celebratory wallop that this groundbreaking exhibition provides. Opening at a time when LGBTQ+ and other minority rights are increasingly under attack, “Queer Lens” can’t come at a better time.
I interviewed the exhibition’s curator, Paul Martineau, who is aware of its importance: “This show tells a powerful story of queer resilience and power. I am really happy with the support I received from the Getty, from its conception to installation. It is wonderful how they redesigned the steps because that is a clear message for everyone, not just the queer community, that this museum is a refuge for people, a protected space.”
On view now through September 28, “Queer Lens” is the first major exhibition in the U.S. to explore the full sweep of photographic history through a distinctly queer perspective. Featuring more than 270 works by 157 photographers, it spans from the mid-19th century to the present, tracing how photography has documented, shaped, and amplified the complex narratives of gender, sexuality, and self-expression throughout American history.
The immediacy and accessibility of photography made it a vital tool for marginalized voices, fostering the emergence of homosocial, homoerotic, and openly homosexual imagery long before mainstream culture dared to acknowledge it.
These are some highlights of the exhibition, which reveals across eight chronological sections how image-makers challenged norms, carved out spaces for desire and identity and built a visual archive of queer life that is as defiant as it is beautiful.
- Homosocial Culture and Romantic Relationships, 1810-1868
In the early 19th century, expressions of intimacy between people of the same gender were socially acceptable. “Boston Marriage” was an accepted term to describe two unmarried women who lived together.
In this section of the exhibit, an 1810s cut-paper silhouette depicts two women facing each other, surrounded by intertwined strands of their hair. A portrait of Frances Clayton is an example of one of the hundreds of women who dressed as men to fight during the Civil War. A major highlight is the outrageous 1870 portrait of Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton, who performed on stage as Fanny and Stella, causing a commotion when they went on the street dressed as women.
- Language and Identity, 1869-1919
Karl-Maria Kertbeny was the first to publish the terms “homosexual” and “heterosexual” in 1869. This breakthrough marked the beginning of a division between straight and gay identities.
Protected by the cover of a scientific photograph, Edward Muybridge tucked discreetly a sequence of two women kissing (1887) in his landmark series studying movement. Another remarkable example is a highly transgressive 1891 image by Alice Austen showing herself and two female friends, all dressed like men. The one in the middle flaunts a phallic racket handle on her crotch.
- The Pansy Craze, 1920-1934
During the Prohibition-era, the “Pansy Craze,” helped make female impersonators famous. A very rare image by James Van der Zee (1927) shows Black men wearing female attire.
Here we see celebrated photographers Cecil Beaton and Man Ray dressed in drag. Ray, a heterosexual artist, was flaunting how cool it was to be “in the know” of the modern trends.
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The Gay Deceiver (1939) Weegee Getty Museum International Center of Photography. Hiding in Plain Sight, 1935-1949
Despite intense discrimination, many queer Americans found ways to express their true selves. “The Gay Deceiver” (1939) is Weegee’s striking image of a young man in drag while being arrested. Instead of being afraid, he smiles and lifts his skirt gleefully, a profound assertion of queer resilience at a time of cruel criminalization.
The 1930s and 1940s introduced photo booths and the Polaroid Land Camera, which provided gay individuals with the privacy to capture moments of intimacy without the fear of taking their film to be developed, potentially leaving them visible and vulnerable. A glorious photo-booth picture of two men kissing is a beautiful, yet fragile, reminder of the progress.
- Rise of the Gay Liberation Movement, 1950-1980
In 1950, the notion that gay people might have infiltrated the U.S. State Department led to the dismissal from their jobs of some five thousand people, also known as the Lavender Scare. The first homophile groups were founded advocating for gay rights while creating a sense of community through events and publications
Fred W. McDarra’s stirring 1966 photo “Mattachine Society ‘Sip-In’ Julius’ Bar” shows three gay men challenging a law that prohibited bartenders from serving gay people. The photo captures the moment when the bartender refused them service, helping to clear a legal pathway for the establishment of gay and lesbian bars.
On June 1969, the Stonewall Inn riots led the way to the expansion of the gay liberation movement. Diana Davis dazzling portrayal of the Gay Liberation March on Times Square and Arthur Tress’s joyful depiction of gay activists at the first Gay Pride Parade capture the exhilarating revolution that ensued.
- The AIDS Crisis, 1981-1996
The 1980s brought the devastating impact of the AIDS crisis, deepening the stigmatization of the gay community. Here you can see “David Kirby on His Deathbed, Ohio.” which shocked the world when Life Magazine published it in 1990. Martineau chose to include only this image of a patient dying from AIDS in the exhibition. He placed it at the center of a gallery as an altar, unavoidable to any visitors.
I had seen reproductions of David Wojnarowicz’s “Buffalo falling” (1988-1989) many times but I wasn’t aware that you can actually see the photographer’s face reflected in this image, integrating himself in his iconic visual metaphor of a generation of gay men lost. This realization makes its viewing a goosebump-inducing moment in the show.
- The Future is Queer, 1990s and Things are Queer (1996 – 2014)
The last two sections span from the 1990s, when the activist group Queer Nation led the effort to reclaim the word “queer” from a slur to a term of empowerment, to our present time.
Friends of Dorothy: This coded expression enabled gay men to safely identify themselves in public. This gallery features over one hundred portraits of queer luminaries. Martineau wanted this room to be a cathedral for the queer community and that’s exactly what you feel, with many visitors sitting down in awe, realizing that they come from a powerful lineage of queer trailblazers.
The work of Catherine Opie reflects this evolution. “Self-Portrait/.Cutting” (1993) shows how she carved a childlike vision of lesbian domestic bliss into her back, externalizing her pain at a time when queer people were not thought capable of lasting relationships or raising children. Her 2004 image of her nursing her baby is a reminder of the resilience and evolution of our community.
One of the final images is Matias Sauter’s exquisite “Christian en el ‘Amor de Calle’,” showing a young man in the brink of adulthood. The only A.I-generated image in the show, it begs the question of how a follow-up exhibition would look in just a few years. The digital and social media revolution will upend how the queer community will see and express itself but, what’s undeniable, is that photography will continue to shape and affirm queer existence, as it always has.
The exhilarated expression of visitors leaving the exhibition proves that it has been a transcendent experience for many of them. Martineau’s majestic show makes a case for the Getty being the most relevant museum in Los Angeles and one of the most important beacons for artistic freedom in the U.S.
Ignacio Darnaude, an art scholar and lecturer, is currently developing the docuseries Hiding in Plain Sight: Breaking the Queer Code in Art. You can view his Instagram, lectures and articles on queer art history on his Linktree.
