Beyond the Binary

A sweeping exhibition explores art created after the term homosexuality was coined in the late 1800s

- By John O'Hern

Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), Wrestlers, 1899. Oil on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Bequest of Fiske and Marie Kimball, 1955, 1955-86-14.

In 2022, Alphawood Exhibitions presented The First Homosexuals: Global Depictions of a New Identity, 1869-1930 at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago. It included more than 100 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and film clips drawn from public and private collections.

This year, an expanded version of the exhibition, The First Homosexuals: Global Depictions of a New Identity, 1869-1939, featuring more than 300 works of art, will be held at Wrightwood 659 through July 26 and will then travel internationally. The exhibition analyzes the art created around the globe in the first 50 years after the term “homosexual” was coined.

The head curator is Jonathan D. Katz, and gender, sexuality and women's studies at the University of Pennsylvania and a founding figure in queer studies in art history. The associate curator is Johnny Willis, curatorial fellow at Wrightwood 659.

The coining of the term "homosexual" in 1869, broke sexuality into a binary system that increasingly placed homo and hetero as opposites but began to allow for homosexuality to be considered not just an act but an identity, a way of being.