Introducing "Remember When..."

I am excited to announce a new element of this blog, the 'Remember When' series. Don't dwell to much on the title (I didn't) but do ask yourself the question. Do you remember when in 1973, the American Psychiatric Association decided that homosexuality was no longer a mental illness? Do you remember when the Matachine Society became one of the first organizations fighting for the betterment of the lives of homosexuals? You probably don't. I certainly did not come across this stuff in my high school history classes.

We will be periodically posting vignettes of interesting and important moments in queer history, providing links, videos, and other cool online resources to (hopefully) inspire a curiosity in the past and provide context for our own project interviews when they are published here. Stay tuned for our first posting next week!

And if you know of a historical moment that you think we should feature, by all means send it our way! You could even write the post yourself!

-Andrew

HISTORY IS CREATIVE

“If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, occasionally to win” 

                                    -Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States 

QUEER HISTORY POPPING UP ALL OVER

photo credit: http://www.houseofdandridge.com/events/fundraisers/do-something-help-keep-the-pop-up-museum-of-queer-history-alive-on-indiegogo/

Though I realize we are not reinventing the wheel with our community history project, I was none the less delightfully surprised to hear of this fantastic project out of NYC: The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History. (Thanks for the lead Steve!) This grassroots organization facilitates ‘pop-up’ installations “dedicated to celebrating the rich, long, and largely unknown histories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.” The organization first ‘popped-up’ in January 2011 with a one night only installation in a queer communal home in Bushwick, Brooklyn conceived as part of a ten-day festival organized by Queer Forum.  With a mission that resonates with our own goals here at the CC History Project, I was interested in the organization’s articulation of the need for such ‘alternative venues’ for the presentation of art and history. I quote from the project’s site at length:

“In an intellectual climate where even the Smithsonian can be forced to bow to the will of homophobia and remove the work of seminal queer artist David Wojnarowicz, we must create alternative venues for our art and history. By utilizing temporarily empty and/or public spaces, the pop-up format turns economic reality to our favor and expands our reach beyond a single location, while the online presence serves as the connecting thread between physical installations.”

The homophobia cited above came from the top, from Republican leaders in congress, to be exact. After CBS News published an inflammatory story about the exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery titled “Smithsonian Christmas-Season Exhibit Features Ant-Covered Jesus, Naked Brothers Kissing, Genitalia, and Ellen DeGeneres Grabbing Her Breasts,” Representative John Boehner and Majority leader Eric Canter called for the exhibit to be immediately removed and threatened budget cuts for encouraging ‘anti-christian hate speech’ in the institution’s promotion of this ‘questionable kind of art’. No joke. Despite this absurdity Wajnarowicz’s video was removed from the exhibit.

As much as I may like to think that this was an isolated incident of conservative takeover of this nation’s otherwise enlightened institutions, a recent report from Outhistory.org reminds us this is not the case. The report concludes,

“[T]he Metropolitan Museum […] discussed LGBT themes in only 1.8% of its exhibitions over the period from 1995-2005. The Museum of Modern Art […] came in at a mere 3.04%. Some museums, like the New York Historical Society have never, in any context and in any way, mentioned any LGBT theme in ten years.”

(Weena Perry: NYC Museums’ Representation of LGBT Artists and Art, August 2007, released April 21, 2011.)

The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History understands the need to advocate and actively work to make queer narratives public. This is exciting and inspiring stuff.

If anyone is on the east coast this month, check out their current show, Pop-Up SoHo at The Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation,

Pop-Up Soho

August 6^th – 25^th

Tues – Sat, noon – 6:00pm

At The Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation

26 Wooster Street