A Show About Stonewall’s Legacy Falters on Inclusion
Hyperallergic, June 6, 2019
By Danilo Machado
This June marks fifty years since the Stonewall Riots, a pivotal moment of LGBTQ activism. Institutions throughout the city are commemorating the anniversary, including the Leslie-Lohman Museum, which was established the same year as the riots. It is currently presenting Art After Stonewall, 1969 – 1989 at their Wooster Street location and at the Grey Art Gallery at New York University. The survey, organized by the Columbus Museum of Art and curated by Jonathan Weinberg, Tyler Cann, and Drew Sawyer, presents 200 objects across media arranged around five themes: Coming Out, Gender Play, Uses of the Erotic, Things Are Queer, AIDS and Activism, and We’re Here. While impressive in its scope and engagement with the era’s tensions and limitations, the exhibition has left unfulfilled its potential to honor and reflect upon this layered legacy more boldly and inclusively.