THIS ISSUE of The G&LR, of which I am the guest editor, spotlights an art exhibition that I co-curated (with Johnny Willis) titled The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869–1939 (open May 2–July 26, 2025, across three floors of the Wrightwood 659 museum in Chicago).
Before the word “homosexual” first appeared in 1869, it can be said that “sexuality” did not exist. Sex, of course, did, and desire as well. But sexuality, that collective identification rooted in desire and sex, had not yet emerged—indeed could not emerge until its alternative form was named, defined, and naturalized. “Homosexuality” was the outside agitator that enabled “heterosexuality” to cohere, thus facilitating the emergence of sexuality as a field of study. Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, one of the first queer activists, is partly responsible for this development, and due to his efforts and those of other mostly German intellectuals in the 1860s, the idea coalesced that there existed a class of people who were born different by virtue of sex and desire, but were otherwise equal in every respect. These were “the first homosexuals” to which this issue’s title refers.
The First Homosexuals, I hasten to add, is an art exhibition. Since art can communicate historical nuances and subtleties that escape the terminology of sexual difference, it can show things without telling the viewer what they are, enabling art to speak out of both sides of its mouth. Thus, queer viewers could note things that eluded the majority. This exhibition is thus premised on the idea that the history of art is both the world’s largest archive of the history of sexuality and its least tapped.
Fully global in scope, The First Homosexuals was a massive, seven-year endeavor to gather some of the world’s greatest masterpieces and read them for their often explicit, if unacknowledged, queer significances. An international scholarly advisory board of some 22 scholars met regularly over the years to define the scope of the project and select possibilities for exhibition. The exhibit includes more than 350 works of art—paintings, films, photographs, drawings, prints, and sculptures from the late 18th century to the beginning of World War II. Borrowed from the world’s leading museums, including the Tate, the Musée d’ Orsay, the Met, and a number of important private collections and foundations, this is a masterpiece show that will introduce a number of figures considered national treasures in their homelands but never before shown in the U.S.
The Monacelli division of Phaidon will be publishing the scholarly catalog of the exhibition, and some of the contributors to this volume were invited to contribute to this issue. The sole venue for The First Homosexuals is Chicago’s Wrightwood 659, though not for want of trying to find other institutions. Apparently, queer art shows remain something of a third rail in the American museum world, a situation that that threatens to become even more dire under the current administration.
