Showcasing approximately one hundred paintings, photographs, works on paper, and sculptures, the exhibition retraces both the cultural and artistic production and the early history of the LGBTQIA+ community. It explores how new visions of sexuality, gender, and identity emerged after 1869—the year the word "homosexual" first appeared in the German-speaking world.
Organized into thematic sections, the multifaceted presentation highlights artists and writers who openly explored—and at times embraced—homosexual and trans identities. It traces the evolution of the nude in dialogue with shifting ideas about sexuality, and shows how friendship and familiar art-historical tropes served as discreet (and, in some cases, less discreet) codes for same-sex desire.
Through perspectives on queer networks, intimate portraits, coded desires, colonial entanglements, and bold life choices, the exhibition also looks beyond Europe. It examines how many European artists perceived same-sex desire as an almost inherent quality of colonial territories, and how, in response, artists across the world challenged and resisted this colonial domination.
