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Image Credit: Ellen DeGeneres, Kauai, Hawaii, 1997, photographed by Annie Leibovitz via NPR

At the end of October, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. opened “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.” The new exhibition features gay and lesbian artists and portraits of prominent figures in the gay community.

As noted by NPR, the exhibition, given the location and the involvement of federal funds, marks a “landmark achievement.” With a tinge of pride, the Gallery states that “this is the first major museum exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture.” Focuses include “how artists explored the fluidity of sexuality and gender; how major themes in modern art—especially abstraction—were influenced by social marginalization; and how art reflected society’s evolving and changing attitudes toward sexuality, desire, and romantic attachment” (National Portrait Gallery). 

As the phrase “Hide/Seek” indicates, the project seems to oscillate between emphasizing various forms of “desire” and highlighting a poignant sense of public and private struggle. Tellingly, the above image of Ellen DeGeneres as photographed by Annie Leibovitz opens the exhibition’s website and emphasizes what arguably appears as the contemporary gay mainstream. A closer look at the images on display reveals a who’s who of iconic artists and intellectuals: Walt Whitman, Robert Maplethorpe, Susan Sontag, Frank O’Hara, Andy Warhol, etc. Yet, the project also features images of lesser-knowns including those lost to the AIDS epidemic. 

The works of art in the exhibition are grouped along crucial periods of public gay definition, including “Before Difference,” “Stonewall and After,” and “AIDS,” which allows the exhibition to function as a documentation of gay rights. Given the National Portrait Gallery's position as a federally-funded Smithsonian museum, such historicizing and legitimizing moves take on added political significance.

Visit the websites linked above for soundslides and a closer look at the gallery. The exhibition runs through mid-February.