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malte androgyne und Transgender-Personen

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"FLINTA*" ist ein Akronym, das für Frauen, Lesben, Inter, Nicht-binäre, Trans, und Agender Personen steht. Der Asterisk am Ende des Akronyms bezieht weitere Geschlechtsidentiäten mit ein, die durch die Buchstaben des Akronyms allein nicht repräsentiert werden. Im Prinzip beinhaltet "FLINTA*" also alle marginalisierten Identiäten, die nicht cismännlich sind.

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"FLINTA*" ist ein Akronym, das für Frauen, Lesben, Inter, Nicht-binäre, Trans, und Agender Personen steht. Der Asterisk am Ende des Akronyms bezieht weitere Geschlechtsidentiäten mit ein, die durch die Buchstaben des Akronyms allein nicht repräsentiert werden. Im Prinzip beinhaltet "FLINTA*" also alle marginalisierten Identiäten, die nicht cismännlich sind.

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Das Akronym FLINTA* steht für Frauen, Lesben, intersexuelle, nicht-binäre, trans und a gender Personen - also für all jene, die aufgrund ihrer Geschlechtsidentität patriarchal diskriminiert werden. Der Begriff FLINTA* wird oftmals verwendet, um deutlich zu machen, wer in bestimmten Räumen und bei bestimmten Veranstaltungen willkommen ist.

Mit Frauen sind meist cis hetero Frauen gemeint, also Frauen deren biologisches Geschlecht mit ihrer Geschlechtsidentität übereinstimmt.

Obwohl Lesbischsein gemeinhin als sexuelle Orientierung und nicht als Geschlechtsidentität gilt, wurde der Begriff in die Abkürzung aufgenommen, um feministische Errungenschaften sichtbar zu machen, die zum großen Teil der Lesbenbewegung zu verdanken sind. Außerdem soll kritisiert werden, dass in der heteronormativen Gesellschaft häufig davon ausgegangen wird, Sex und Liebesbeziehungen mit cis Männern sei ein fester Bestandteil von Weiblichkeit.

Intersexuelle Menschen haben angeborene Geschlechtsmerkmale, die von der herrschenden gesellschaftlichen und medizinischen Norm nicht als eindeutig akzeptiert werden, die also nicht in die Kategorien männlich oder weiblich passen, sei es genetisch, hormonell und oder anatomisch.

Als nicht-binär bezeichnen sich Menschen, die sich nicht (nur) mit einem der beiden vermeintlich biologischen Geschlechtern identifizieren. Sie können sich zum Beispiel zwischen diesen beiden Geschlechtern verorten, außerhalb davon, oder fluid in ihrer Geschlechtsidentität sein.
[Neuigkeiten aus der queeren Welt gibt es im Queerspiegel-Newsletter des Tagesspiegel, der zweimal im Monat erscheint - hier geht es zur Anmeldung.]
Trans Menschen identifizieren sich nicht mit dem Geschlecht, in dem sie bislang gelebt haben und möchten körperlich und sozial im anderen von zwei Geschlechtern leben.

Agender Personen wiederum, manche nutzen auch die Selbstbezeichnung genderless, fühlen sich keinem Geschlecht zugehörig und lehnen das Konzept von Geschlecht teilweise komplett ab. Agendersein ist eine spezifische Ausprägung von Nicht-Binärität, weshalb manchmal auch die Abkürzung FLINT* verwendet wird, wobei agender Personen sich entweder dem N oder dem Sternchen zuordnen können.

Das Gendersternchen soll jene Personen inkludieren, die sich in keinem der Buchstaben wiederfinden, aber ebenfalls aufgrund ihrer Geschlechtsidentität in einer patriarchalen heteronormativen Mehrheitsgesellschaft marginalisiert werden. Sprich alle, die kein cis Mann sind - auch schwule oder bisexuelle cis Männer gehören daher nicht zu dieser Gruppe.

FLINTA*-Räume - Safe Space und Ermächtigungsraum

Immer häufiger liest man bei Veranstaltungsbeschreibungen „FLINTA* Only", cis Männer sind also nicht erwünscht. Diese Räume sollen den betreffenden Personen die Möglichkeit geben, über ihre Marginalisierungserfahrungen zu sprechen, sich miteinander zu solidarisieren und keine Angst vor Diskriminierung durch cis Männer haben zu müssen. Sie sind Schutzraum und Ort des Empowerments in einem.

Die Frage, wer in diesen Räumen willkommen ist oder wer nicht, wurde bereits häufiger diskutiert. Die Frage, ob Schutzräume generell eine gute Idee sind, übrigens auch. Häufig argumentieren cis Männer, die FLINTA*-Räume ablehnen, dass diese Räume gegen das Prinzip der Gleichberechtigung verstoßen und Männer diskriminieren würden.

Aber auch Angehörige verschiedener Feminismusströmungen, beispielsweise des cis Feminismus oder des trans exkludierenden Feminismus, sogenannte Terfs, stören sich an diesen Räumen. Ein häufiges Argument: INTA*-Personen würden in Schutzräume für Frauen eindringen und „echten" Frauen ihre Sichtbarkeit streitig machen. Das biologische Geschlecht und die Geschlechtsidentität sind nach Ansicht dieser Feminist*innen nicht zu trennen.

Gerade trans Personen und männliche gelesene inter, nicht-binäre und agender Personen können deswegen manchmal schwer abschätzen, ob sie bei „FLINTA* Only"-Räumen willkommen sind oder im vermeintlichen Schutzraum mit Ablehnung rechnen müssen. Um INTA*-Personen vor der Diskriminierung durch cis Frauen zu schützen, werden seit neuestem auch spezifische Räume und Veranstaltungen nur für diese Gruppen angeboten.

Kritik an eindimensionalen Frauenverständnis

Bestrebungen, feministische Bewegungen inklusiver zu machen gibt es bereits seit über vierzig Jahren. Frühere feministischen Bewegung machten vor allem die Situation von cis Frauen sichtbar und kämpften für mehr Gleichberechtigung spezifisch für diese Frauen. Durch die erhöhte Sichtbarkeit der Lesbenbewegung und das Aufkommen queerfeministischer Diskurse in den 1980er Jahren wurde jedoch deutlich, dass der Begriff „Frau" nicht alle Menschen umfasst, die durch das Patriarchat unterdrückt werden, und nicht allen Marginalisierungserfahrungen gerecht werden kann. Daraufhin entwickelten sich Schreibweisen wie Frauen* oder FrauenLesben als Kritik an diesem eindimensionalen Frauenverständnis.

Zur gleichen Zeit wurden dekonstruktivistische Theorien, die Geschlechtsidentität von biologischem Geschlecht unterschieden und Geschlecht und Heteronormativität als gesellschaftlich konstruiert benennen, immer publiker. Eine der wichtigsten Vertreter*innen dieses Theorieansatzes und gleichzeitig eine der Wegweiser*innen der Queer Theorie ist Judith Butler. Butler stellte die binäre Geschlechterordnung radikal in Frage, beschrieb sowohl das biologische Geschlecht als auch die Geschlechtsidentität als gesellschaftliches Konstrukt und betonte die Vielfältigkeit und Veränderbarkeit von Geschlecht.

Durch diesen Wandel des Geschlechterverständnisses wurden auch gesellschaftliche Bewegungen inklusiver, und inter, trans, nicht-binäre und agender Personen wurden in feministischen Kämpfen sichtbarer. Begriffe wie Frauen* und FrauenLesben wurden um Geschlechtsidentitäten ergänzt und Kürzel wie FLIT, FLTI oder FLTI* setzten sich durch. Um das Jahr 2017 herum entstand schließlich die Abkürzungen FLINT* und FLINTA*, welche mittlerweile am gebräuchlichsten sind.

Das Queer-Lexikon Was soll das Gendersternchen?
Das gesamte Queer-Lexikon finden Sie hier Jasmin Ehbauer . Wir ergänzen es in lockerer Folge. Themenanregungen und Kritik gern im Kommentarbereich etwas weiter unten auf dieser Seite oder per Email an: queer@tagesspiegel.de.

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Das Queer-Lexikon: Was bedeutet FLINTA*?

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Das Akronym FLINTA* steht für Frauen, Lesben, intersexuelle, nicht-binäre, trans und a gender Personen - also für all jene, die aufgrund ihrer Geschlechtsidentität patriarchal diskriminiert werden. Der Begriff FLINTA* wird oftmals verwendet, um deutlich zu machen, wer in bestimmten Räumen und bei bestimmten Veranstaltungen willkommen ist.

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FLINTA* Künstler*innen stehen im täglichen Kampf um die Sichtbarkeit ihrer Kunst. Obwohl laut des statistischen Bundesamtes über 50% der Absolvent*innen von Kunsthochschulen nicht männlich sind, spiegelt sich dies auf dem Kunstmarkt nicht wider und es herrscht in Museen und Galerien ein big Gender Show Gap. Daraus resultiert in der Bildenden Kunst ein Gender Pay Gap von 28 %. 

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FLINTA* Künstler*innen stehen im täglichen Kampf um die Sichtbarkeit ihrer Kunst. Obwohl laut des statistischen Bundesamtes über 50% der Absolvent*innen von Kunsthochschulen nicht männlich sind, spiegelt sich dies auf dem Kunstmarkt nicht wider und es herrscht in Museen und Galerien ein big Gender Show Gap. Daraus resultiert in der Bildenden Kunst ein Gender Pay Gap von 28 %. 

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FLINTA* Künstler*innen stehen im täglichen Kampf um die Sichtbarkeit ihrer Kunst. Obwohl laut des statistischen Bundesamtes über 50% der Absolvent*innen von Kunsthochschulen nicht männlich sind, spiegelt sich dies auf dem Kunstmarkt nicht wider und es herrscht in Museen und Galerien ein big Gender Show Gap. Daraus resultiert in der Bildenden Kunst ein Gender Pay Gap von 28 %. Traurige Aussichten und deshalb wollen wir genau da ansetzten: Der Gender Show Gap ist der Leitfaden unserer ersten Ausgabe. Wir wollen mit Vollgas gegen die Unterrepräsentation von FLINTA* Kunst in einer inklusiveren Kunstszene durchstarten. Gender Show Gap? Nicht mit uns. The Show must go on but not like this.

Bei VOLL:KUNST erwarten euch in einem visuellen Freiraum beeindruckende Arbeiten von 11 Newcomer FLINTA* Künstler*innen. Ihr könnt das Magazin als Ganzes behalten oder die Kunstwerke durch eine Perforierung aus dem Magazin heraustrennen und so selbst zu Kurator*innen werden. Wie bei der Bravo früher, nur intersektional feministisch! Lesen, anschauen, aufhängen. Ergänzt durch einen informativen Austausch mit Gedichten und emotionalen Geschichten (in einem zweisprachigen Konzept mit einer Mischung aus englischen und deutschen Texten) haben wir bei VOLL:KUNST, den von Mehrfachdiskriminierung betroffenen und in der Kunstbranche systematisch unterrepräsentierten Personen, eine Plattform gegeben. Dabei sind Perspektiven von diversen FLINTA* Künstler*innen zusammengekommen und wir haben aktiv Platz für queere, non-binäre und nicht-weiße Stimmen gemacht. Ihr könnt euch auf Interviews mit etablierten FLINTA* Künstler*innen und Organisationen freuen, etwas über den Gender Show Gap in der Kunstwelt erfahren und bei VOLL:VERNETZT Netzwerke in Deutschland rund um Unterstützung und Weiterbildung für FLINTA* Künstler*innen, in eurer Nähe entdecken.

In diesem Magazin begegnen euch Themen wie Heilung durch Kunst und die Entstehung eines Community Art Ateliers. Ihr lernt, was es bedeutet, wenn Kreativität zur Überlebensstrategie wird und wie man den sozialpsychiatrischen Bereich, mit dem Künstlerischen verbinden kann. Auf euch warten Themen wie Selbstwahrnehmung, Trauma und Substanzmissbrauch. Ihr erfahrt, wie die Normalisierung von Nacktheit gegen die Sexualisierung von weiblich gelesenen Körpern kämpft, was polyvalente Kunst ist und wie Kunst einen positiven Beitrag zu der Natur leisten kann.

Was fehlt ist Geld, um das Ganze zu drucken und deutschlandweit in queerfeministischen Spaces auszulegen, beim Qweer Spring Market 2023 in Berlin zu präsentieren sowie an unsere Community zu verschicken. Kostenlos!

Nach dem Motto "Gegenseitiger Support statt Konkurrenzkampf" wollen wir Synergien erschaffen, eine Vernetzung sowie das Gefühl von Verbundenheit zwischen FLINTA* Künstler*innen fördern und eine Community erschaffen. Wir wollen einen Freiraum für ungehörte und strukturell unterdrückte Personen eröffnen, gegenseitiges Empowerment auslösen und Plattform für einen aktiven kritischen Austausch zwischen FLINTA* Künstler*innen sein, um so auf die Problematik der Unterrepräsentation von FLINTA* Künstler*innen aufmerksam machen.

Mit unseren Inhalten richten wir uns primär an kunstschaffende FLINTA* Personen, die eine Community suchen, das Bedürfnis nach Vernetzung haben oder sich in der bildenden Kunstszene etablieren wollen. Das Magazin ist aber auch für alle Personen, die sich allgemein für Kunst interessieren und sich näher über die Thematik informieren wollen.

Weil diese Person die Chance hat, vielfältige, inklusive, feministische Kunst zu erleben und FLINTA* Künstler*innen unterstützen. Dabei unterstützt dieser jemand eine junge Studi Gruppe. Wir sind der Meinung, dass genau bei der Gegenwartskunst angesetzt werden sollte, das Missverhältnis in der Kunstszene auszugleichen.

Wir sind nicht profitorientiert. Egal welche Summe: Kein Cent wird an uns gehen. Das Magazin wird kostenlos sein. Mit welcher Auflagenhöhe, ob wir es verschicken können oder nicht, wie schnell wir unterwegs sind und ob wir angekommen, entscheidet ihr:

3.500 Euro - Wir starten
Unser Motor wird angeschaltet und wir können 250 Ausgaben drucken! Davon können wir eine limitierte Auflage beim Qweer Spring Market und unserer Release Party zu Abholung bereitstellen. Wir können das Magazin nicht versenden oder auslegen.

4.400 Euro - Wir fahren langsam, aber sicher
Wir sind mit Vollgas Richtung Traum unterwegs und müssen uns gut festhalten. Wir können jetzt 500 Ausgaben drucken und jetzt zusätzlich VOLL:KUNST Poster und Postkarten produzieren, eine limitierte Anzahl an Magazinen Kostenlos an euch verschicken und das Magazin an ca. 5 queerfeministischen Orten in Berlin auslegen!

5.000 Euro - Wir geben Vollgas
Wir sind mit Vollgas Richtung Traum unterwegs und müssen uns gut festhalten. Wir können jetzt 750 Ausgaben drucken, mehr Ausgaben kostenlos verschicken und das Magazin an ca. 15 queerfeministischen Orten deutschlandweit auslegen!

Wir sind ein 6-köpfiges Team und studieren gemeinsam Kulturarbeit in Potsdam. Mit unseren Vorerfahrungen hat sich ein queerfeministisches Redaktionsteam gebildet, wobei wir alle unterschiedlichste, wertvolle Kompetenzen mitbringen. So entsteht ein Team, das sich mit Skills in verschiedenen Bereichen gegenseitig unterstützen kann.

VOLL:KUNST

Warum zahlt das Projekt auf dieses Ziel ein?

Mit unserem Vorhaben verfolgen wir einen intersektionalen Ansatz und stehen für eine geschlechtergerechte und inklusive Kunstszene ein. Auch Personen, die von Mehrfachdiskriminierung betroffen sind, werden in der Kunstbranche systematisch unterrepräsentiert und benachteiligt. Wir beziehen uns aus diesem Grund nicht nur auf Cis-Frauen, sondern auf FLINTA* Personen. Dabei legen wir einen hohen Wert auf ein inklusives Denken und eine queerfeministische Perspektive.

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VOLL:KUNST - Magazin für Kunst von FLINTA*

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Melanie Bonajo (they/them) is a queer, non-binary, Dutch artist, filmmaker, feminist, sexological bodyworker, somatic sex coach and educator, cuddle workshop facilitator and animal rights activist. Through their videos, performances, photographs and installations, Mel examines current conundrums of co-existence in a crippling capitalistic systems, and address themes of eroding intimacy and isolation in an increasingly sterile, technological world.

They research how technological advances and commodity based pleasures increase feelings of alienation, removing a sense of belonging in an individual, and their works present anti-capitalist methods to reconnect, explore sexualities, intimacies and feelings. Their experimental documentaries often explore communities living or working on the margins of society, either through illegal means or cultural exclusion, and the paradoxes inherent to ideas of comfort with a strong sense for community, equality, and body-politics. Their work has been exhibited and screened internationally, from the Tate Modern, MoMA PS1, to De Appel Arts Centre and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam to Manifesta 12, the Gwanjou Biennale, the Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, the Kunsthalle Basel, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the Berlinale, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Treefort Film Fest.

Bonajo's film series Night Soil is a trio of experimental documentaries about modern approaches to nature and the cultural implications of acting against capitalism. The first in the series, Night Soil - Fake Paradise, is about psychedelic plant medication, human-plant conversations and how ancient rituals of indigenous descent can be translated to urban environments. The video pays close attention to the female voice, which has traditionally been neglected in psychedelic research. In the sequel, Night Soil - Economy of Love, a women's activist movement approaches sex work as a way for femmes to reclaim their power in a male-dominated pleasure zone. Their emphasis is on nurturing, educating and empowering all sexes around the power that lays within the female orgasm. The third film, "Night Soil - Nocturnal Gardening," considers how communities come together through alternative and pre-colonial uses of land. Structured around four central storylines, the video explores indigenous land rights, off-the-grid subsistence, racism and injustice in the food system and the consequences of consumer behaviour on farm animals centering female activists.

Progress vs. Regress, which premiered at Hacking Habitat, is the first in a trilogy that questions how technology has changed social relationships through the eyes of centenarians in the Netherlands. This film was also selected for IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) 2016. The film Progress vs Sunsets (2017) examines extinction or the endangerment of vulnerable groups through techno-capital development, but also extinction in an abstract sense, such as that of feelings and thoughts. Through the eyes and voices of children, the film illustrates the complicated issues around animal rights, bio-politics, dwindling resources, ecology, anthropomorphism in which Nature, as the ultimate "other" is seen as a utilitarian object outside of ourselves, and the implications these ethics have on human desires, emotions, emotiveness and sentimentality towards 'the others".

Bonajo's most recent film TouchMETell (2019) initiates a discussion with children about boundaries, gender roles, physical autonomy and intimacy and the lack of physical contact in this digital age, where we seem to have forgotten the language of our bodies.

Bonajo's Furniture Bondage photography series pairs domestic tools with the naked female body. In 2012 they initiated Genital International, a feminist performance collective event about participation and equality. Bonajo's photography series and music video work Pee on Presidents is often tied to the recent anti-censorship and sex-positive branches of the feminist movement for its endorsement of female body agency in public environments, resulting in a provocation of censorship laws in the media.

As a psychedelic eco-feminist using technology, Bonajo's activism extends into our relationship with the natural world, using gender as a lens to engage with ecology, spirituality and the body politic. Increasingly it is addressed towards nature and the rights of non-human persons, as manifested in the Matrix Botanica - Non-Human Persons publication, and Matrix Botanica - Biosphere above Nations (2013) film. This performance and film explores the absurd construction of placing human identity "outside" nature. This work re-shapes contemporary human/plant/animal rituals in a desacralized global society, and examines remaking relations with nature on the basis of recognising them not as "things" but as creative, self-directed, originative others. In addition to the film, they also shows how the symbol of nature and animal has drastically changed over the years in a publication entitled Matrix Botanica. This revised version of the magazine makes visible the way our relationship to nature has changed through the popularization of amateur-nature photography on the internet.

Bonajo is a certified Somatic Sex Coach and International Cuddle Workshop Facilitator. Their work is based on the principle that when we expand our pleasure ceiling by practicing knowledge around our own body's needs and boundaries, increase sensitivity through presence and cultivate new language, we also create more nuance, depth and safety in our relationship with others. Touch is their anti-capitalist medication to re-negotiate intimacy and body connections in a safe(r) space to counter the epidemic of loneliness and the erosion of our feelings. This is apparent in Skinship_, a touch-based place for kinship_, initiated by Mel. It is a collective run queer/trans/non-binary/genderfluids/agenders/genderexpansive and femme centering space restructuring and re-prioritizing the body as a vehicle for connection and safety, cultivating touch, pleasure, sexuality, playfulness, consent, boundaries and friendship as a form of activism. In 2020, the Skinship collaborated with several educators to offer 21 Days of Selfpleasure, a queer and pagan self love advent calendar.

In 2021, Mel collaborated with KABK on the Wxtchcraft Studium Generale talk series, which featured Silvia Federici, Adriene Maree Brown, Staci Haines, Starhawk and more. This curriculum stands opposed to the commodified and tamed cultural representation of the witch, and in opposition to purely rational, scientific reason with its many tools of oppression.

Bonajo has performed internationally at venues such as Paradiso in Amsterdam, Baby's Alright in NYC and Collège des Bernardins in Paris alongside artists such as Kembra Pfahler and Bianca Cassidy of CocoRosie. Their band, ZaZaZoZo, is a music project with Joseph Marzolla known for its spacatronic folk sound and animalistic influence. All their music is produced by Bonajo's brother Tommie Bonajo at his Tomster studios. They released their debut album INUA in spring 2013 by Tsunami Addiction. More recently Bonajo collaborated with Michael Behari to create a vinyl record entitled Single Mother Songs on the End of Nature, published by Bonnefanten Museum. Boundary Boss by Bonajo, Splitter Splatter and Friends is the follow-up, released in 2020, and addresses children on having ownership over their personal boundaries for a healthy solid sense of self and self-esteem in a post- Me Too movement era.

Bonajo released their first major publication since Spheres in December 2015 Matrix Botanica Nonhuman Persons designed by Experimental Jetset, which explores the ways we experience nature through representations on the internet, via YouTube and blogs posting adorable, funny or adorably sad amateur videos and photographs of nonhuman animals. This publication delves into the ways nature education has changed over the years and integrates the voices of animal behavior scientists rather than a National Geographic perspective.

In 2020 Bonajo was selected to represent The Netherlands at the 59th Venice Biennale, 2022. They will be working with a curatorial team consisting of Maaike Orlando Gouwenberg, Geir Haraldseth and Soraya Pol. The work will be presented at the Chiesetta della Misericordia in the Cannaregio neighbourhood in Venice.

2018 Melanie Bonajo - Single Mother Songs from the End of Nature, with Michael Beharie

2016 Matrix Botanica - How to Escape from an Elderly Home Method 2016, with Tommie Bonajo

2014 ZaZaZoZo - Woke up as a Wolf

2013 ZaZaZoZo - Inua (Tsunami Addiction)

2021 Wxtchcraft KABK Studium Generale talk series, online

2020 Self Love Advent Calendar

2020 Skinship: A Touch-based Place for Kinship

2019 Party Melanie Bonajo's Massage Mayhem Sexyland, Amsterdam, NL

2015 QQC Performance Festival, Paradiso, Amsterdam, NL

2015 Night Soil Musical Celebration of our Sexual Psychedelic Power with Bunny Michael, Baby's All Right, NYC

2014 HOODOO ∆ VOODOO, Collège des Bernardins, Paris

2014 The Feeling Internet, Mediamatic, Amsterdam

2014 Qu'est-ce que C'est?, Paradiso, Amsterdam

2019 TouchMETell, Rabo Lab, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NL

2019 Progress vs. Sunsets, Kunsthalle Lingen, DE

2018 The Death of Melanie Bonajo, Bonnefantenmuseum, NL

2017 Melanie Bonajo: Single Mother Songs from the End of Nature - Night Soil Trilogy, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt

2016 Next Level: Melanie Bonajo - Night Soil, Foam, Amsterdam

2015 Night Soil - Economy of Love, Akinci Gallery, Amsterdam

2015 Company Gallery, NYC

2013 Matrix Botanica; Biosphere above Nations, Museum de Paviljoens, Almere

2011 86 details of Paradise, Outline, Amsterdam

2009 The Grand Exploring Soul and the Point where History Failed, Rijksakdemie Open, Amsterdam

2022 COME ALIVE, curated by Ine Gevers and Morgan Catalina (Niet Normaal INT), Utrecht, NL

2021 Modern Love curated by Katerina Gregos, Tallinn Art Hall, EE

2021 A I S T I T / coming to our senses, Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris, Helsinki (multiple locations)

2021 TBA 21 Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary / St*age, curated by Chus Martinez

2021 Point of No Return, NART Annual Exhibition, curated by Saskia Lillepuu, Narva, EE

2021 Vrijdenkers, curated by Nathalie Faber, Amsterdam, NL

2021 Phantom, curated by Francesca Corona, Rome, IT

2021 Listening to Voices, Futura Centre for Contemporary Art, curated by Caroline Krzyszton, Prague, CZ

2021 Centre Photographique Rouen Normandie, Rouen, FR

2021 From a Grain of Dust to the Cosmos, curated by Baron Rosenkrantz, Ishoj, DK

2021 Potential Agrarianisms, Kunsthalle Bratislava, SK

2021 Flowers in Art, curated by Dea Antonsen, Ishøj, DK

2021 Rauw. De afkeer van idealisering, Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, NL

2021 Rettet den Wald!, curated by Anne Berk, Nijmegen, NL

2021 Kunstenfestival Watou, curated by Benedicte Goesaert, Poperinge, BE

2021 Come Back as a Flower, Helsinki Art Museum, FI

2021 Phantom, curated by Francesca Corona, Rome, IT

2021 Pornotopia revised, curated by Sylvia Sadzinski, Vienna, AT

2021 The Institute of Things to Come, curated by Valerio del Baglivo, Torino, IT

2021 Joseph Beuys und die Shamanen curated by Barbara Strieder, Oliver Kretschmann, Museum Schloss Moyland, Bedburg - Hau, DL

2020 Musrara Festival curated by Vera Korman and Dana Sahar, Jerusalem, IL

2020 On Earth - imaging, technology and the natural world Le Lieu Unique, Nantes, FR

2020 Empathie. Geen mens is een eiland curated by Imke Ruigrok, Museum Ijsselstijn, NL

2020 Bodies of Water. The 13th Shanghai Biennale curated by Andrés Jaque, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, CN

2020 Modern Love curated by Katerina Gregos, Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg, DE

2020 MAKING KIN Kunsthaus Hamburg, DE

2020 Kunsthaus Dresden, DE

2020 Modern Love (or Love in the Age of Cold Intimacies) Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg, DE

2019 TouchMeTell Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NL

2019 Rencontres d'Arles Arles, FR

2019 Do Not Disturb Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FR

2019 Progress vs. Sunsets. Re-formulating the Nature Documentary Kunsthalle Lingen, DE

2019 Be Fragile! Be Brave! (Night Soil-Economy of Love), curated by Rebeka Põldsam, Pori Museum, FI

2019 Vrijheid. Vijftig Nederlandse Kernkunstwerken sinds 1968, curated by Hans den Hartog Jager, Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, NL

2019 Creatures Made to Measure-Animals and Contemporary Design (Progress vs Sunsets), an exhibition by Martha Herford Museum in collaboration with Tanja Seiner, Design Museum, Ghent, BE

2018 Exhibition Nam June Paik Awards, 2018, Westfälischer Kunstverein, DE

2018 Out of Office, Singer Museum, Laren, NL

2018 Een ontembare kracht, Cobra Museum, Amstelveen, NL

2018 ABN AMRO collection exhibition, 'Natural' Constructions - curated by Danila Cahen, Circle ART, Amsterdam, NL

2018 Genius Loci (Night Soil-Fake Paradise), Parc Saint Léger, Pougues-les-Eaux, FR

2018 Creatures Made to Measure-Animals and Contemporary Design (Progress vs Sunsets), Martha Herford Museum, DE

2018 Bloot/Exposed, (Peeing on Presidents), Museum Kranenburgh, Bergen, NL

2018 Freedom of Movement (Progress vs. Sunsets), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, NL

2018 Guangzhou Triennial (Progress vs. Sunsets), Guangzhou Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China

2018 Manifesta 12, Palermo, IT

2018 Anima Mundi, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, NL

2018 Haus der Sinnsuche, gutes leben durch Kultur, curated by Ellen Blumenstein, Kunstsaele, Berlin, DE

2018 Object Love, de Domijnen, Sittard, NL

2018 Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA), curated by Katerina Gregos, Riga

2018 Reis naar de toekomst, Tussendiepen, Drachten, NL

2018 Blind Faith: Between the Visceral and the Cognitive in Contemporary Art, Haus der Kunst, München, DE

2017 Ten Days Six Nights, Tate Modern, London

2017 Exhibition Prix de Rome 2017, Kunsthal, Rotterdam

2017 Homeward Bound, Nicodim gallery, Los Angeles, USA

2017 Once more, with feeling, curated by Martine van Kampen, KAF Expo, Almere stad, NL

2017 Summer of Love, Schwarz Foundation, curated by Katerina Gregos, Lesbos, GR

2017 Ben ik een dier? De Domijnen, Sittard, NL

2017 CBK Zeeland, FAÇADE 2017: Face your freedom, Zeeland, NL

2017 Screen Present Tense, HDLU, Zagreb

2017 Wiener Festwochen - The Conundrum of Imagination, Leopold Museum Vienna, AU

2017 Bienne Festival of Photography, Biel, CH

2017 Planetary Garden, curated by Ashley Lumb & Laura Mclean, Manuka Arts Centre, AU

2017 Artefact Expo: The Act of Magic, curated by Karen Verschooren & Ilse Huygens, STUK, Leuven, BE

2017 Living in Dreams, curated by Els Fiers & Frank Koolen, De Bond Brugge, BE

2016 Give Me Yesterday, Fondazione Prada, IT

2016 Close-Up A New Generation of Film and Video Artists in the Netherlands, EYE Film Institute, Amsterdam, NL

2016 Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, CH

2016 Hacking Habitat, NL

2014 Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, NL

2020 Awarded the Dutch Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale

2019 Prix Pictet (nominee)

2018 Amsterdamprijs voor de Kunst (nominee)

2018 Nam June Paik Award (nominee)

2017 Prix de Rome (nominee)

2017 Campaign Artist for Amsterdam Unseen

2016 Shortlisted for the Dutch Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale

2016 IFFR Tiger Award for short films

2015 IFFR Tiger Award for short films (nominee)

2014 IFFR Tiger Award for short films (nominee)

2013 MK Award

2011 C.o.C.a (nominee)

2009 Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Peter Paul Peterich Fonds

2009 Festival Internationale de la Mode et Photographie

2007 PUP Award

2006 Berlinale Talent Campus

2020 International Cuddle Workshop Facilitator

2019 Somatic Sex Coach and Educator

2014 The International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York, USA

2009-2010 Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunst, Amsterdam, NL

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Melanie Bonajo (they/them) is a queer, non-binary, Dutch artist, filmmaker, feminist, sexological bodyworker, somatic sex coach and educator, cuddle workshop facilitator and animal rights activist. Through their videos, performances, photographs and installations, Mel examines current conundrums of co-existence in a crippling capitalistic systems, and address themes of eroding intimacy and isolation in an increasingly sterile, technological world.

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Yuki Kihara (Faʻafafine/third gender in Samoa)

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Yuki Kihara (Faʻafafine/third gender in Samoa)

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Gluck: Medallion (YouWe), 1937 by Gluck Photograph: Gluck/Courtesy of The Fine Art Society 

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Gluck: Medallion (YouWe), 1937 by Gluck Photograph: Gluck/Courtesy of The Fine Art Society 

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Gluck: the lesbian rebel of pre-war painting - in pictures

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Hannah Gluckstein, aka Gluck, born to a wealthy British family, became an artist with a string of high-profile lovers - and created emotive, humanistic paintings

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 Claude Cahun (Lucy Schwob) M.R.M (Sex) c. 1929-30

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 Claude Cahun (Lucy Schwob) M.R.M (Sex) c. 1929-30

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Juliana Huxtable Untitled in the Rage (Nibiru Cataclysm), 2015

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Juliana Huxtable Untitled in the Rage (Nibiru Cataclysm), 2015

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Untitled in the Rage (Nibiru Cataclysm), 2015

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Perhaps the most influential artist of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso may be best known for pioneering Cubism and fracturing the two-dimensional picture plane in order to convey three-dimensional space. Inspired by African and Iberian art, he also contributed to the rise of Surrealism and Expressionism. Picasso's sizable oeuvre grew to include over 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures,ceramics, theater sets, and costume designs. He painted his most famous work, Guernica (1937), in response to the Spanish Civil War; the totemic grisaille canvas remains a definitive work of anti-war art. At auction, a number of Picasso's paintings have sold for more than $100 million. The indefatigable artist has been the subject of exhibitions at the world's most prestigious institutions, from the Museum of Modern Art and Centre Pompidou to the Stedelijk Museum and Tate Modern.

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Juliana Huxtable | Untitled in the Rage (Nibiru Cataclysm) (2015) | Artsy

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From New Museum, Juliana Huxtable, Untitled in the Rage (Nibiru Cataclysm) (2015), Inkjet print

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Romaine Brooks | Portrait de la Comtesse Anna de Noailles | American | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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melanie bonajo, When the body says Yes, 2022. Photo: Sydney Rahimtoola

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melanie bonajo, When the body says Yes, 2022. Photo: Sydney Rahimtoola

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ArtReview sent a questionnaire to artists and curators exhibiting in and curating the various national pavilions of the 2022 Venice Biennale, the responses to which will be published daily in the leadup to and during the Venice Biennale, which runs from 23 April to 27 November.

melanie bonajo is representing The Netherlands; the pavilion is in the Chiesetta della Misericordia of Art Events in the Cannaregio neighbourhood.

ArtReview What can you tell us about your exhibition plans for Venice?

melanie bonajo Love is not learned in isolation and, if you have felt it, someone else has probably felt it too. We created a collective spell in the form of a pleasure-positive camp, an eco-erotic queer eros, celebrating our kin through skinship. A place of productive chaos and care, where we practised touch tutorials, set boundaries, gave and received consent, drank our own poison at the trigger bar, did weird therapies and acknowledged feelings as valid.

We brought together a group of international gender queer people, where many have a bicultural identity, and we expanded on sexuality beyond the Western discourse, what our genitals mean to us and others, self-expression as a healing modality, the way our body matrix sends and receives information about closeness and touch, and how that is embodied in different language structures. Do you know the sensational dimensions of your No? How do you feel when your body says Yes?

AR Why is the Venice Biennale still important?

mb The Biennale is as good or as important as all the art in it. This year seems to be important in order to take another look at history, and in particular art history, and reinsert some powerful artistic practices that might have been written out some time ago. The Biennale often is too close to the power structures that make me anxious and tired of the artworld, so I'm carefully excited for this incarnation.

AR Do you think there is such a thing as national art? Or is all art universal? What is misunderstood or forgotten about your country's art history or artistic traditions?

mb Everybody, besides white cis-het men, is misunderstood, forgotten and/or not mentioned or not mentioned enough.

AR Which other artists from your country have influenced or inspired you?

mb Tedje en de Flikkers

AR How does having a pavilion in Venice make a difference to the art scene in your country?

mb The pavilion creates and upholds distinctions in a way which I am not that interested in. I am very happy to not be in the Giardini and have a work which is free to the public. The art scene in a country is much more defined and based on long-lasting relationships with the community.

AR If you've been to the biennale before, what's your earliest or best memory from Venice?

mb My van exploded on the highway just leaving Venice on my first Biennale trip. My bestie, two hitchhikers and all my belongings were inside. We all survived. The stuff dematerialised. The van burned to the ground with big explosions. The police officer gave me their shoes. We were stuck on the beach waiting for our passports. Someone told me to put the car in an exhibition, but I didn't.

I still remember the Biennale. It was the show The Encyclopaedic Palace, by Massimiliano Gioni [2013]. As a student of religious science, art and esotericism, it was a great moment to see so many of these works brought together, and I was impressed by how spot-on this exhibition was researched. I felt honoured and deeply touched to see all these rare works in real life, and it is still one of my favourite shows ever.

AR What else are you looking forward to seeing?

mb People with healthy guts and regulated nervous systems, who are smiling and appreciating all the work everyone puts into making this happen, instead of putting on your fancy shoes to walk the big dismissal walk.

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'A Collective Spell in the Form of a Pleasure-Positive Camp': melanie bonajo on representing The Netherlands at the 59th Venice Biennale

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The artist describes creating 'an eco-erotic queer eros, celebrating our kin through skinship'

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Yuki Kihara, Paradise Camp, curated by Natalie King. Installation view, Biennale Arte 2022. Photo: Luke Walker

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Yuki Kihara, Paradise Camp, curated by Natalie King. Installation view, Biennale Arte 2022. Photo: Luke Walker

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The photographs
Paradise Camp comprises a suite of twelve tableau photographs in saturated colour, situated against a vast wallpaper of a landscape decimated by the 2009 tsunami. Eleven of the works were shot on location in Sāmoa, from rural villages to churches, plantations and heritage sites, with a local cast and crew of over eighty people.
Kihara's performative photography upcycles select paintings by post-impressionist French artist Paul Gauguin in a suite of images that repurpose his paintings created during his time in the Islands of Tahiti and the Marquesas between 1891 and 1903. Kihara problematises Gauguin's outsized legacy by re-enacting his paintings back in the Pacific, paying careful attention to the details of his works. These re-enactments instill a Polynesian inflection to each photograph and are based on strong personal relationships with Kihara's sitters, all of whom are part of the Fa'afafine and Fa'atama communities. Kihara works with these models to represent her own vision of Paradise, redirecting the viewer to the concerns of contemporary Pacific Islanders and 'returning the gaze' in a profound gesture of empowerment.

In one photograph within the suite, Kihara casts herself as Gauguin in Paul Gauguin with a hat (After Gauguin). Through this ingenious role reversal, Kihara commands her own space within the traditions of art history while upending the conventions of portraiture itself.

View all photographs here

Paul Gauguin with a hat (After Gauguin)

Amongst Kihara's suite of twelve photographs is an elaborate self-portrait. The work is set apart as both the only photograph shot outside of Sāmoa, and the only photograph featuring Kihara herself.

Inspired by the faleaitu (house of spirits) skits performed in Sāmoan culture, Kihara returns indoors to a studio in Auckland, casting herself as Gauguin. Paul Gauguin with a hat (After Gauguin) transforms Kihara via prosthetics, costume, moustache and wig.

Through this ingenious role reversal, Kihara performs the penultimate inversion of the white, male, European gaze. In adopting the guise of Gauguin, Kihara commands her own space within the traditions of art history, speaking back to the histories of colonial portraiture as a bold decolonial undertaking.

Vārchive
Kihara's Vārchive is an exhibition within an exhibition. Usually, an archive collects and classifies historical documents and records, but for Paradise Camp, Kihara reformats the conventional archive into her Vārchive - a term coined by the artist to introduce the concept of Vā into the archive. Renowned Sāmoan writer Albert Wendt describes the Vā as 'the space between, the betweenness, not empty space, not space that separates but space that relates, that holds separate entities and things together'.
The Vārchive includes personal research, rare books by 19th century explorers, colonial portraits, pamphlets, news items, a geological sculpture, activist material and visual links between Gauguin and Sāmoa.

Kihara's alternative and exploratory Vārchive rejects rigid conventions to draw surprising and uncanny connections between pop culture, ethnography, aesthetic anthropology and historical imagery. The vārchive represents Kihara's deep research into Polynesian Queer histories and provides a living story of how Paradise Camp came into being.

Experience the full Vārchive through our Virtual Explore

First impressions
On the single channel projection in Paradise Camp is First Impressions: Paul Gauguin a five-part episodic talk show featuring a group of Fa'afafine and Fa'atama critiquing selected works by Paul Gauguin, who is both essentially unknown and irrelevant to them.
The five guests wittily comment on the appearance of Gauguin's paintings with hilarity and insight. The selected works - created during Gauguin's time in Tahiti and the Marquesas - are believed to feature Māhu - the Tahitian 'third gender'. Speaking from their unapologetically Fa'afafine and Fa'atama positions, the cast offer disarming insight and candour as they review Gauguin's work, simultaneously critiquing Gauguin and empathising with his sitters. Hosted by Anastasia Fantasia Vancouver Stanley (Queen Hera) and commissioned by the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco and The Ny Carlsberg Glyptokek, Copenhagen, First Impressions draws us into the Paradise Camp universe.

Trailer for First Impressions: Paul Gauguin 2018. Commissioned by Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco and Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.

Accompanying the exhibition is a substantial new publication that is a hybrid of exhibition catalogue and book. Published by Thames and Hudson and edited by Natalie King, it features over ten commissioned contributors from around the world and explores the interwoven strands running through Paradise Camp.

High-profile contributors include Cuban artist, scholar and activist Coco Fusco; Tahitian author Chantal Spitz; Sāmoan artist and writer Dan Taulapapa McMullin; renowned Gauguin scholar Professor Elizabeth Childs; Filipino curator Patrick Flores; Māori activist, Emeritus Professor and Venerable Elder Scholar Ngahuia Te Awekotuku; and scholar, and Paradise Camp curator, Natalie King OAM.

The publication includes poems, archival images, reflections, a substantial interview and a chronology of Yuki's personal, professional and political history by Ioana Gordon-Smith.
view and purchase catalogue here

Firsts Solidarity network

An informal Firsts Solidarity Network of national pavilions has been established for the 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia.
Spearheaded by Kihara, the first artist from New Zealand to present at the Biennale Arte who is Pasifika, Asian and Fa'afafine, this artist-led initiative comprises artist/s who are a first-time representative from a marginalised or under-represented group in their respective country or a first-time country participant at the Biennale.

The network has produced a map to offer visitors to Venice a route to discover these 'firsts' at the global art world event. For artists and curators, the network offers practical advice and camaraderie among participating pavilions.

The Firsts Solidarity Network includes Albania, Great Britain, Nepal, New Zealand, Poland and Singapore.

Learn more about the Firsts on e-flux's website .

Join the Paradise Camp
mailing list

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Nanna Lüth Radical Drag! Varianten einer nicht-binären Kunstpädagogik, 2016

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Nanna Lüth Radical Drag! Varianten einer nicht-binären Kunstpädagogik, 2016

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Radical i:lrag! Varianten einer nicht-binären l(unstpädagogil<

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QUEERING (NEXT) ART EDUCATION KUNST/PÄDAGOGIK ZUR VERSCHIEBUNG DO-MINANTER ZUGEHÖRIGKEITSORDNUNGEN, Nanna Lüth, Carmen Mörsch / 2014

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QUEERING (NEXT) ART EDUCATION KUNST/PÄDAGOGIK ZUR VERSCHIEBUNG DO-MINANTER ZUGEHÖRIGKEITSORDNUNGEN, Nanna Lüth, Carmen Mörsch / 2014

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KUNST/PÄDAGOGIK ZUR VERSCHIEBUNG DO-

MINANTER ZUGEHÖRIGKEITSORDNUNGEN

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Queering the Catalogue: A Look at Queer, Gay, and Trans Art and Artists, Patrick J. Raftery, Jr., March 20, 2019 (unter anderem Trans artists)

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Queering the Catalogue: A Look at Queer, Gay, and Trans Art and Artists, Patrick J. Raftery, Jr., March 20, 2019 (unter anderem Trans artists)

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Queering the Catalogue: A Look at Queer, Gay, and Trans Art and Artists - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Senior Library Associate Patrick J. Raftery Jr. explores Thomas J. Watson Library’s collection of books on LGBTQ+ art and artists.

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The works of artists from French 19th-century animal painter Rosa Bonheur to American pop artist Andy Warhol have changed the course of art history. And photographers Nancy Andrews, Sunil Gupta, and Zanele Muholi use their images to advocate for and celebrate their queer communities.

Take a self-guided tour of LGBTQ+ artists on your next visit-most of these works are on view at the National Gallery.

London-based photographer Sunil Gupta has spent much of his career chronicling the beauty and struggle of his own gay community.

In 1988 Gupta created 'Pretended' Family Relationships. The series of photographs was his response to Section 28, a group of laws that prohibited promoting "the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship" in the United Kingdom. Gupta's works combine portraits of gay couples, some staged and others real, with images from protests against Section 28. Poetry by Stephen Dodd, Gupta's partner at the time, appears on panels between the two images.

Kelly first made Color Panels for a bank. When the workentered the National Gallery's collection in 2005, the artist changed it for the East Building. In the end, he preferred the new layout of the panels to his original design.

Kelly was an openly gay man-one of his long-term partners was fellow artist Robert Indiana.
Learn more about Ellsworth Kelly's life.

French painter Marie Laurencin did some cubist painting and exhibited with artists like Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. But she became famous for works like In the Park. These paintings show ghostly women with bright white skin and dark eyes wearing pastel outfits. They are always set against abstract backgrounds.

Living in Paris during the late 19th century, Laurencin was part of a community of avant-garde (new and experimental) artists and creatives who were relatively open about their sexuality. Laurencin had relationships with both men and women. She was a regular at salons held by American author Natalie Clifford Barney. Barney, a lesbian, welcomed other women like herself. One of Laurencin's first patrons was lesbian American author Gertrude Stein.

You can see several works by famous American pop artist Andy Warhol in our galleries, including his iconic Green Marilyn. Look across the room and you may recognize the artist's signature style: silkscreens of repeated photographs. This workis a tribute to Warhol's friend, artist Robert Rauschenberg.

The two found a common interest in using art to comment on popular culture. Warhol's silkscreen process of transferring photographs onto canvas inspired Rauschenberg, who had already been making transfers onto paper.

The inspiration went both ways-Warhol made a series of works using photographs of Rauschenberg and his family. The title, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (Rauschenberg Family), comes from a book by James Agee with images by Walker Evans, one of Rauschenberg's favorite photographers.

Warhol lived openly as a gay man. His boyfriends, including John Giorno and Jed Johnson, often worked with him on his art.

After serving in the Navy, Robert Rauschenberg began a career as an artist. He eventually settled in New York City and found a job designing window displays for department stores, working with artist Jasper Johns under the name Matson Jones. Rauschenberg met Johns in 1952, and the two became romantic partners and artistic collaborators. Their relationship lasted until 1961.

Rauschenberg experimented with using different materials in his artworks. Adding newspaper to black paintings led to his "combines" like Black Painting-works that didn't fit neatly into either the painting or sculpture categories. Rauschenberg gave this work to Johns. It entered the National Gallery's collection more than 50 years later in 2013.

African American artist Mickalene Thomas often invites models to pose in her built sets. While the photographs Thomas takes form the basis of her celebrated rhinestone-lined paintings, they have also become finished works in their own right.

Melody: Backshows a Black woman mimicking the pose of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres's The Grand Odalisque. An odalisque wasan enslaved woman, often part of a harem. In Thomas' photograph the woman holds a bouquet of flowers in one hand; in Ingres's version, the woman holds a peacock fan. Thomas, a Black queer woman making a portrait of a Black woman, is reframing a work in which a white, European man has exoticized his subject. The tattoo on the model's lower back reads "Only God Can Judge Me." Melody: Back also refers to African art: the mix of patterned fabrics recalls images by Seydou Keïta.

Horn's works often explore doubles (pairs that look identical)-as well as opposites like heavy and light, solid and fluid, transparent and opaque. The artist is also interested in how objects are affected by what is around them. The sculpture changes depending on the light, and at the right angle, the polished surface reflects its viewer.

South African photographer Zanele Muholi's series Faces and Phases focuses on their country's Black lesbian and queer community. In the black-and-white photographs, posed subjects look directly at the camera. The work is "a space for people to be visible, respected, and recognized" Muholi says.

Muholi identifies as a visual activist. The series is part of their larger efforts to document and celebrate the South African queer community and its strength in the face of continuing hate crimes and discrimination.

You may have seen other versions of this sculpture: four stacked letters spelling out "LOVE." But did you know it started as a Christmas card? When the Museum of Modern Art invited American artist Robert Indiana to design one in 1965, he recalled a church decorated with the words "God is Love." Indiana's message of love came shortly after heartbreak-his relationship with artist Ellsworth Kelly had ended just a year earlier. The two had been together since 1956.

After making the card, Indiana spread love on prints, paintings, and sculptures. In this later version, he swapped out LOVE for the word's Spanish (or Latin) translation, AMOR.

Hartley was never openly gay. He claimed that the series of "German Officer" portraits (that this painting is part of) had no veiled meanings. The references to his lover were only revealed after Hartley's death.

John lived in France for most of her adult life and had relationships with both women and men. She was a muse and romantic partner to French sculptor Auguste Rodin. She also studied with James McNeill Whistler.

American photographer and reporter Nancy Andrews published Family: A Portrait of Gay and Lesbian Americain 1993. The work celebrates the everyday lives and extraordinary achievements of queer Americans she met across the country. Andrews described it as "the book I looked for when I began to realize I was gay."

This photograph shows Roberta Achtenberg, an attorney and civil rights advocate-and the first openly gay federal appointee confirmed by the US Senate. The hearing for her position lasted days, with more than nine hours of obstruction and intense questioning from senators who opposed her lesbian identity and history of activism.

Iowa artist gained national fame in 1930 for American Gothic, still one of the best known American paintings. In 1939 he made New Road and Haying, a pair of idealized midwestern landscapes.

That same year Wood was the subject of a scandal. He had been experimenting for several years with printmaking. In 1939 he made a work for Associated American Artists, which sold low-cost prints through the mail. Sultry Nightshowed a nude male farmhand bathing himself by moonlight. The US Postal Service banned the print, and a colleague at the University of Iowa tried (but failed) to have Wood fired on moral grounds. Wood died of cancer only a few years later. His life as a gay man was not widely discussed until recently.

Maybe the best-known Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo is famous for her vibrant and fantastical paintings, many of them self-portraits. While she was married to Mexican painter Diego Rivera, Kahlo was bisexual and known to have both men and women as lovers. Some of her paintings, such as Two Nudes in a Forest, explore these themes.

Kahlo was part of a community of creatives and thinkers in Mexico City. Through that group she became close friends with photographer Lola Álvarez Bravo, who took this photograph. Kahlo looks "through" a mirrored archway. The double image recalls her Las Dos Fridas (The Two Fridas), which shows two versions of the artist holding hands.

Successful French artist Rosa Bonheur made paintings and sculptures of cows, horses, sheep, and other creatures. She was so committed to her craft that she asked the French government for permission to wear pants, arguing that that would make it easier for her to study animals.

In the 19th century, Bonheur could not present openly as a lesbian. But she lived for more than 40 years with fellow painter Nathalie Micas-and, after Micas's death, with American photographer and painter Anna Klumpke. The three are buried side by side in Paris.

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Discover the lives of 15 LGBTQ+ artists and their art, much of which you can see at the National Gallery.

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Roni Horn, Opposite of White, v. 2 (Large) (A), 2006-2007

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Roni Horn, Opposite of White, v. 2 (Large) (A), 2006-2007

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The works of artists from French 19th-century animal painter Rosa Bonheur to American pop artist Andy Warhol have changed the course of art history. And photographers Nancy Andrews, Sunil Gupta, and Zanele Muholi use their images to advocate for and celebrate their queer communities.

Take a self-guided tour of LGBTQ+ artists on your next visit-most of these works are on view at the National Gallery.

London-based photographer Sunil Gupta has spent much of his career chronicling the beauty and struggle of his own gay community.

In 1988 Gupta created 'Pretended' Family Relationships. The series of photographs was his response to Section 28, a group of laws that prohibited promoting "the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship" in the United Kingdom. Gupta's works combine portraits of gay couples, some staged and others real, with images from protests against Section 28. Poetry by Stephen Dodd, Gupta's partner at the time, appears on panels between the two images.

Kelly first made Color Panels for a bank. When the workentered the National Gallery's collection in 2005, the artist changed it for the East Building. In the end, he preferred the new layout of the panels to his original design.

Kelly was an openly gay man-one of his long-term partners was fellow artist Robert Indiana.
Learn more about Ellsworth Kelly's life.

French painter Marie Laurencin did some cubist painting and exhibited with artists like Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. But she became famous for works like In the Park. These paintings show ghostly women with bright white skin and dark eyes wearing pastel outfits. They are always set against abstract backgrounds.

Living in Paris during the late 19th century, Laurencin was part of a community of avant-garde (new and experimental) artists and creatives who were relatively open about their sexuality. Laurencin had relationships with both men and women. She was a regular at salons held by American author Natalie Clifford Barney. Barney, a lesbian, welcomed other women like herself. One of Laurencin's first patrons was lesbian American author Gertrude Stein.

You can see several works by famous American pop artist Andy Warhol in our galleries, including his iconic Green Marilyn. Look across the room and you may recognize the artist's signature style: silkscreens of repeated photographs. This workis a tribute to Warhol's friend, artist Robert Rauschenberg.

The two found a common interest in using art to comment on popular culture. Warhol's silkscreen process of transferring photographs onto canvas inspired Rauschenberg, who had already been making transfers onto paper.

The inspiration went both ways-Warhol made a series of works using photographs of Rauschenberg and his family. The title, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (Rauschenberg Family), comes from a book by James Agee with images by Walker Evans, one of Rauschenberg's favorite photographers.

Warhol lived openly as a gay man. His boyfriends, including John Giorno and Jed Johnson, often worked with him on his art.

After serving in the Navy, Robert Rauschenberg began a career as an artist. He eventually settled in New York City and found a job designing window displays for department stores, working with artist Jasper Johns under the name Matson Jones. Rauschenberg met Johns in 1952, and the two became romantic partners and artistic collaborators. Their relationship lasted until 1961.

Rauschenberg experimented with using different materials in his artworks. Adding newspaper to black paintings led to his "combines" like Black Painting-works that didn't fit neatly into either the painting or sculpture categories. Rauschenberg gave this work to Johns. It entered the National Gallery's collection more than 50 years later in 2013.

African American artist Mickalene Thomas often invites models to pose in her built sets. While the photographs Thomas takes form the basis of her celebrated rhinestone-lined paintings, they have also become finished works in their own right.

Melody: Backshows a Black woman mimicking the pose of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres's The Grand Odalisque. An odalisque wasan enslaved woman, often part of a harem. In Thomas' photograph the woman holds a bouquet of flowers in one hand; in Ingres's version, the woman holds a peacock fan. Thomas, a Black queer woman making a portrait of a Black woman, is reframing a work in which a white, European man has exoticized his subject. The tattoo on the model's lower back reads "Only God Can Judge Me." Melody: Back also refers to African art: the mix of patterned fabrics recalls images by Seydou Keïta.

Horn's works often explore doubles (pairs that look identical)-as well as opposites like heavy and light, solid and fluid, transparent and opaque. The artist is also interested in how objects are affected by what is around them. The sculpture changes depending on the light, and at the right angle, the polished surface reflects its viewer.

South African photographer Zanele Muholi's series Faces and Phases focuses on their country's Black lesbian and queer community. In the black-and-white photographs, posed subjects look directly at the camera. The work is "a space for people to be visible, respected, and recognized" Muholi says.

Muholi identifies as a visual activist. The series is part of their larger efforts to document and celebrate the South African queer community and its strength in the face of continuing hate crimes and discrimination.

You may have seen other versions of this sculpture: four stacked letters spelling out "LOVE." But did you know it started as a Christmas card? When the Museum of Modern Art invited American artist Robert Indiana to design one in 1965, he recalled a church decorated with the words "God is Love." Indiana's message of love came shortly after heartbreak-his relationship with artist Ellsworth Kelly had ended just a year earlier. The two had been together since 1956.

After making the card, Indiana spread love on prints, paintings, and sculptures. In this later version, he swapped out LOVE for the word's Spanish (or Latin) translation, AMOR.

Hartley was never openly gay. He claimed that the series of "German Officer" portraits (that this painting is part of) had no veiled meanings. The references to his lover were only revealed after Hartley's death.

John lived in France for most of her adult life and had relationships with both women and men. She was a muse and romantic partner to French sculptor Auguste Rodin. She also studied with James McNeill Whistler.

American photographer and reporter Nancy Andrews published Family: A Portrait of Gay and Lesbian Americain 1993. The work celebrates the everyday lives and extraordinary achievements of queer Americans she met across the country. Andrews described it as "the book I looked for when I began to realize I was gay."

This photograph shows Roberta Achtenberg, an attorney and civil rights advocate-and the first openly gay federal appointee confirmed by the US Senate. The hearing for her position lasted days, with more than nine hours of obstruction and intense questioning from senators who opposed her lesbian identity and history of activism.

Iowa artist gained national fame in 1930 for American Gothic, still one of the best known American paintings. In 1939 he made New Road and Haying, a pair of idealized midwestern landscapes.

That same year Wood was the subject of a scandal. He had been experimenting for several years with printmaking. In 1939 he made a work for Associated American Artists, which sold low-cost prints through the mail. Sultry Nightshowed a nude male farmhand bathing himself by moonlight. The US Postal Service banned the print, and a colleague at the University of Iowa tried (but failed) to have Wood fired on moral grounds. Wood died of cancer only a few years later. His life as a gay man was not widely discussed until recently.

Maybe the best-known Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo is famous for her vibrant and fantastical paintings, many of them self-portraits. While she was married to Mexican painter Diego Rivera, Kahlo was bisexual and known to have both men and women as lovers. Some of her paintings, such as Two Nudes in a Forest, explore these themes.

Kahlo was part of a community of creatives and thinkers in Mexico City. Through that group she became close friends with photographer Lola Álvarez Bravo, who took this photograph. Kahlo looks "through" a mirrored archway. The double image recalls her Las Dos Fridas (The Two Fridas), which shows two versions of the artist holding hands.

Successful French artist Rosa Bonheur made paintings and sculptures of cows, horses, sheep, and other creatures. She was so committed to her craft that she asked the French government for permission to wear pants, arguing that that would make it easier for her to study animals.

In the 19th century, Bonheur could not present openly as a lesbian. But she lived for more than 40 years with fellow painter Nathalie Micas-and, after Micas's death, with American photographer and painter Anna Klumpke. The three are buried side by side in Paris.

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Discover the lives of 15 LGBTQ+ artists and their art, much of which you can see at the National Gallery.