Curator Talk: Love Is Love

Join Bartholomew F. Bland, Executive Director of Lehman College Art Gallery, for an illuminating look at romance, love, and affection in LGBTQIA+ contemporary art. This presentation features paintings, photographs, sculpture, and multimedia works that tell stories of vulnerability, tenderness, and desire within the queer artistic community. More than three dozen artists are highlighted, including examples from It Takes 2—with works by Mark Bradford and Felix Gonzalez-Torres, on loan from Art Bridges—and Mark O’Banks’s beloved Nybylwyck Hall dollhouse from the HRM’s collection. These works explore the transformative power of love and reflect the growing visibility of queer narratives across identities of race, age, gender, class, and religion.

Bartholomew F. Bland is a New York–based curator and writer specializing in contemporary and nineteenth-century American art. Formerly the Deputy Director at the Hudson River Museum, he has organized over sixty exhibitions, including Queer Love: Affection and Romance in Contemporary Art at La MaMa Galleria (2023), Eco-Urgency: Now or Never at Wave Hill (2022), and Alien Nations at Coral Gables Museum (2020).

Image: Ruvén Afanador. Mx Justin Vivian Bond and Anthony Roth Costanzo, New York City, May 18, 2021, 2021. Archival digital print. Courtesy of the artist.