by Jon Lackman | 8 November 2010 | Modern, Museums
Brett Zongker of the Associated Press writes on “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” a new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery:
“There’s been an entire history hiding in plain sight,” said Portrait Gallery historian and curator David C. Ward. “Telling the history of art without the history of gay people is like telling the history of slavery without mentioning black people.” Many have avoided the subject, he said, out of politeness or homophobia … While the images are mostly tame, curators know such a show at the publicly funded Smithsonian Institution could draw scrutiny. Co-curator Jonathan Katz of the State University of New York at Buffalo said he tried for 15 years to mount a similar exhibit in New York City but found no takers. “How did we get to a point where the banking world is more progressive than the museum world?” he said, noting many corporations already offer benefits to same-sex partners. “This was the last acceptable prejudice.”
In The Washington Post, Blake Gopnik calls the show “one of the best thematic exhibitions in years.”
