Description

As part of its exhibition of contemporary photographs, “On Christopher Street: Transgender Portraits by Mark Seliger,” and within a larger suite of exhibitions on view highlighting LGBTQIA+ experiences, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (ISGM) will include an archival section that honors its founder’s legacy of supporting artists and nurturing communities who push the boundaries of societal conventions and cultural norms. Accordingly, “Bearing Witness: Isabella and Queer Communities (working title)” presents photographs, letters, printed material, and ephemera to highlight the queer communities that Isabella Stewart Gardner fostered, including the “Dabsville” artists group in Gloucester, MA, known for its open acceptance of queer lifestyles and gay sexuality. Archival materials will illuminate these communities’ previously unwritten histories, and show how Gardner created safe, joyful spaces bonded not only in art but by an embrace of non-normative sexual orientations that placed them at risk in society at large. Alongside these exhibitions, ISGM will develop related programming in partnership with leaders in Boston’s LGBTQIA+ community to establish the Museum as a cultural home for all.