Seeing and Being Seen: Photography from the Loeb in Honor of the First Vassar Pride
Friday, April 8, 2022 - Sunday, June 5, 2022
Organized in close collaboration with a committee of current Vassar students, and in partnership with Vassar’s LGBTQ+ and Women’s Centers, this exhibition honored a new tradition of Vassar Pride. Photographs from the Loeb’s collection, as well as personal ephemera borrowed from Vassar’s Archives & Special Collections Library, represent a multiplicity of identities within an intersectional understanding of queer communities– especially those formed at Vassar.
Pride celebrations, past and present, have taken many forms. Yet they all share a recognition of the importance of LGBTQ+ visibility, both individual and collective. This exhibition demonstrates the necessities and complexities of seeing and being seen through photography. Including photographs by Mariette Pathy Allen, Martine Gutierrez, Peter Hujar, Joel Meyerowitz, Zanele Muholi, and Mickalene Thomas, this exhibition explores the power of visibility through portrait photography. In their photographs, queerness intersects with Indigenous, Black, gender-nonconforming, transgender, and intergenerational identities. As sites of agency, these photographs embed intimate exchanges between photographers, subjects, and viewers, sometimes highlighting tensions between artifice and authenticity. They demonstrate how photography can be a generative site of collaboration and communion.
In recognizing that LGBTQ+ experience is not exclusive to one community, but rather shared by many, this exhibition represented a multiplicity of voices both in artistic representation and curatorial approach. A committee of Vassar students and administrators convened to select objects, articulate exhibition themes, and write interpretive materials. We recognize that this exhibition is in no way exhaustive in representing LGBTQ+ experiences, but we hope that it will be a catalyst for conversation as we celebrate a new tradition of Vassar Pride. In light of dangerous political efforts to limit LGBTQ+ civil rights today, the need for queer visibility is as urgent as ever. Zanele Muholi, who photographs people outdoors, summarizes the importance of visibility: “I like open air, because that’s how we claim the public spaces, the mainstream spaces.”
There are works that appeared in this exhibition that were loans to the Loeb and therefore do not appear on this website.
Pride celebrations, past and present, have taken many forms. Yet they all share a recognition of the importance of LGBTQ+ visibility, both individual and collective. This exhibition demonstrates the necessities and complexities of seeing and being seen through photography. Including photographs by Mariette Pathy Allen, Martine Gutierrez, Peter Hujar, Joel Meyerowitz, Zanele Muholi, and Mickalene Thomas, this exhibition explores the power of visibility through portrait photography. In their photographs, queerness intersects with Indigenous, Black, gender-nonconforming, transgender, and intergenerational identities. As sites of agency, these photographs embed intimate exchanges between photographers, subjects, and viewers, sometimes highlighting tensions between artifice and authenticity. They demonstrate how photography can be a generative site of collaboration and communion.
In recognizing that LGBTQ+ experience is not exclusive to one community, but rather shared by many, this exhibition represented a multiplicity of voices both in artistic representation and curatorial approach. A committee of Vassar students and administrators convened to select objects, articulate exhibition themes, and write interpretive materials. We recognize that this exhibition is in no way exhaustive in representing LGBTQ+ experiences, but we hope that it will be a catalyst for conversation as we celebrate a new tradition of Vassar Pride. In light of dangerous political efforts to limit LGBTQ+ civil rights today, the need for queer visibility is as urgent as ever. Zanele Muholi, who photographs people outdoors, summarizes the importance of visibility: “I like open air, because that’s how we claim the public spaces, the mainstream spaces.”
There are works that appeared in this exhibition that were loans to the Loeb and therefore do not appear on this website.
Venues
Hoene Hoy Photography Gallery