(CHICAGO, IL — May 6, 2019) Wrightwood 659 hails the Stonewall Rebellion on its 50th anniversary with About Face: Stonewall, Revolt and New Queer Art. This major exhibition, which occupies all four floors of the new Tadao Ando-designed Wrightwood 659, features nearly 500 works that seek to reframe the traditional view of the uprising. Rather than claiming Stonewall as the beginning of the gay and lesbian liberation movement—as is customary—this exhibition focuses on a rejection of the traditional binary view of sexuality and gender identity, exploding the very idea of gay and straight, woman and man, minority and majority, or feminine and masculine. In the works on view in the exhibition, sexuality and gender identity, far from clear categories, bleed and overlap to the point that “queerness” becomes a verb, not a noun.
Centered on the idea of resisting these structuring binaries, the exhibition celebrates a pluralistic, intersectional rebellion grounded in the idea that identity is at once deep-rooted and disposable—truth and drag in one package. About Face engages the diversity of queerness with painting, sculpture, photography, film and video, and installation and performance art of the highest quality. Showing many international artists for the first time in the US or Chicago, the exhibition will introduce audiences to some of the best queer work being done today.
About Face: Stonewall, Revolt and New Queer Art is on view from May 22 through July 20, 2019. Wrightwood 659 is its only venue. A scholarly catalogue will be published after the exhibition closes.
—From a press release