Editor’s Pick

“Laggardly summers allow the better galleries to make declarations. And here, in the third of the group shows we want you to go see, what’s at stake is exactly that: being seen. The only queer, Black gallery in San Francisco—by its own account—these two categories of identity can spark with friction, too often disappearing from one or the other those people who are both. Here, with chromatic glee, cruisy softness, and truly ecstatic, sexy joy, the six artists on view make it nigh impossible not to look their way.”

-Andrew Berardini

About the Exhibition

To Be Seen is a group exhibition about assimilation. Can a person be Black and queer at the same time? Or must we always conceal one part of who we are at all times? Often we as Black queer people have questioned ourselves–are we “Black” enough to be in Black spaces, but also queer enough to be a part of the LGBTQ community? In questioning this notion, we have found ourselves caught between two worlds in the hopes to blend in and not be seen. The cost of this comes at a price of course; a price where we don’t fully get to live our authentic lives. “Try not to be seen” is advice we may have heard from relatives, friends, colleagues or mentors in their hope to keep us safe from judgement or perhaps violence, but ultimately it has had a bigger emotional and psychological negative impact on who we are as Black queer people. This multigenerational group exhibition is meant for us to boldly claim who we are by being seen, maintaining our presence and being outwardly visible.