'The First Homosexuals' Exhibition Unpacks Origins of Queer Identity
Assembling 300 works from 40 countries.
In a cultural moment marked by censorship and retrenchment, Chicago’s Wrightwood 659 presents a bold counternarrative: The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869–1939. Spanning more than 300 works from 125 artists across 40 countries, the exhibition traces the emergence of queer identity. The show brings together pieces from major institutions including the Tate in London and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, alongside rarer finds from small private collections in countries like Spain and Sri Lanka.
Curated by scholar Jonathan D. Katz and eight years in the making, the show rewinds to 1869, the year the term “homosexual” first entered public discourse. Through provocative works—drag portraits, two-spirit celebrations, early same-sex unions—the show dismantles the myth of binary sexuality. What emerges is a complex, global history of queerness long before it was policed or categorized.
Staged across three floors of the private, philanthropically funded Wrightwood 659, the exhibition finds refuge in independence. Institutions across Europe and the U.S. declined to host the show—despite being offered the full program at no cost.
“It is the kind of exhibition that a massive institution like the Met regularly pulls off,” Katz said to The Chicago Sun Times. “But for a small, fairly new institution like Wrightwood 659 to pull off, is kind of extraordinary.”
The exhibit’s final chapter revisits catastrophe: the Nazi destruction of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research—a haunting reminder of how quickly visibility can vanish. “This show is both a celebration and a warning,” Katz says. “What happened once can happen again.”
Wrightwood 659
659 W Wrightwood Ave.
Chicago, IL 60614
