Brooklyn Museum Presents 'HIDE/SEEK,' an Artistic Exploration of Sexual Identity

Opening Friday, November 18, at the Brooklyn Museum is "HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture," the first major museum
exhibition to explore how gender and sexual identity have shaped the creation of American portraiture.

The exhibit, organized by and presented at the National Portrait Gallery last fall, will be on view at the Brooklyn Museum through February 12, 2012. The Brooklyn Museum has reconstituted the exhibition in concert with Tacoma Art and the cooperation of the National Portrait Gallery.

HIDE/SEEK will highlight the influence of gay and lesbian artists, many of whom developed new visual strategies to code and disguise their subjects’ sexual identities as well as their own.

The exhibit includes approximately a hundred works in a wide range of media created over the course of one hundred years, reflecting a variety of sexual identities, including stories that span several generations.

“From the moment I first learned about this extraordinary exhibition in its planning stages, presenting it in Brooklyn has been a priority," said Brooklyn Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman. "It is an important chronicle of a neglected dimension of American art and a brilliant complement and counterpoint to Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties, a touring exhibition organized by the Brooklyn Museum, also on view this fall. ”

HIDE/SEEK considers such themes as the role of sexual difference in depicting modern Americans, how artists have explored the definition of sexuality and gender, how major themes in modern art —especially abstraction— have been influenced by marginalization, and how art has reflected society’s changing attitudes.

A wide range of public programs also will be presented in conjunction with HIDE/SEEK, among them a two-part symposium that will explore themes and issues related to the exhibition. The first panel will examine the complex roles, responsibilities and challenges that cultural institutions face when presenting “controversial” works of art. A second panel will discuss representations of identity and sexuality in art.