In the early morning of June 28, 1969, the New York Police Department raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Lower Manhattan. It was a scene that had played out in many LGBTQIA+ spaces across the city, countless times. This time, patrons fought back. The clash with law enforcement lasted six days, later becoming known as the Stonewall Riots. It was the moment that sparked the modern gay rights movement. Today, Pride celebrations are held around the world every June, marking the anniversary of this event. It is an opportunity for people to come together to commemorate decades of civil rights struggles and the ongoing pursuit of equality. Here are our top picks of upcoming art exhibitions and events, spotlighting artists  whose work offers powerful resistance and expressions of queer joy 

Photography has always served as a powerful tool for examining concepts of gender, sexuality, and self-expression. Getty Museum’s latest exhibition highlights the transformative role of queer artists in the field. Visitors are taken on a journey across time from censorship of expression at the turn of the 20^th century, through drag performances in 1920s New York, the 1969 Stonewall riots, the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, to the present-day and issues like the struggle for trans rights. The images featured include portraits of gay cultural icons, such as Irving Penn’s picture of writer Truman Capote; historic moments as depicted in Arthur Tress’ Gay Activists at First Gay Pride Parade; and Rotimi-Fani Kayode’s intersectional snapshots of Black, queer desire. The richness of LGBTQIA+ life is palpable throughout this display. 

Novelist Larry Mitchell famously wrote about LGBTQIA+ communities living “between revolutions” in the 1970s, depicting both the constraints of existing in a hostile society and the possibility of finding abundance in a world free from threat. Mitchell was an influential figure in New York, founding Calamus Books – an early small press devoted to gay male literature – and publishing fiction dealing with the gay male experience. Now, Palm Springs Art Museum takes the title of its exhibition from Mitchell’s writing. To Move Towards the Limits of Living, dedicated to queer art, draws from the museum’s photography, painting and design collections to examine how LGBTQIA+ artists have used diverse strategies to respond to experiences of marginalisation and assert their identity. 

The decade following the Stonewall Riots saw the rise of Gay Liberation movements and greater queer visibility across the world. This extended to cinema, which reflected these changes as directors grabbed opportunities to tell their own stories and queer characters took centre stage. It was a refreshing change from the representation in the pre-Stonewall era, which often depicted LGBTQIA+ characters as victims and villains. The Barbican travels back in time this Pride month, with eleven screenings featuring films that revolutionised queer cinema. Female desire is central in Chantal Akerman’s sexually provocative first feature Je Tu Il Elle, which culminates in a famous ten-minute lesbian sex scene. Meanwhile, male sexuality is explored in Peter de Rome’s pornographic film Adam & Yves, in which an American in Paris meets a young Frenchman who likes to mix sex play with complicated mind games.

Since 2013, photographer Ajamu X has created portraits that celebrates the contributions of LGBTQIA+ individuals who are overlooked in mainstream narratives. Now, 10 new portraits, created in collaboration with the Martin Parr Foundation, add a new chapter to the artist’s ever-evolving archive. The images feature Myles-Jay Linton and Edson Burton, from the Kiki – one of Bristol’s first community groups for queer people of colour – and Travis Willie, Founder of Black Trans Hub, UK. Ajamu X explains his motivation: “The challenge I’ve faced over the years is that people don’t associate fine art photography with activist work. Because I’m not doing reportage or documentary in that traditional sense … My social activist work is done through a fine art lens, so it’s about moving those ideas into the white cube space.” 

There are many cultures throughout global history that recognise gender identity as other than the binary of “male” and “female.”  Some Indigenous North American groups adopted the term “two-spirits” to refer to people who are believed to embody both a male and female spirit, whilst “Muxes” are a community of people in Mexico who typically have male sexual characteristics but embrace a feminine identity. ficciones patógenas features staged photography that reveals how Western colonial regimes justified acts of violence, dispossession and extraction through characterising these ways of being as “unnatural.” These narratives have infiltrated legal, religious, cultural, political and ideological structures and continue to shape understandings of bodies, land, culture, and power today.

Phyll Opoku-Gyimah (Lady Phyll) founded UK Black Pride in 2005. It began as a day trip to Southend-on-Sea, organised by members of the online social network, Black Lesbians in the UK. Today, the London-based event is Europe’s largest celebration of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American and Caribbean heritage LGBTQIA+ people, attracting nearly 8,000 people annually. Queer Britain, the first dedicated LGBTQ museum in the UK, chronicles two decades of the organisation, tracing the movement as it shifted from a small gathering to an international event. The exhibition highlights how UK Black Pride has evolved into so much more than a single moment in the calendar, instead becoming a vital voice advocating for the rights and dignity of Black LGBTQIA+ individuals globally. 

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Image credits:

1.Gay Liberation March on Times Square 1969, Diana Davies. Gelatin silver print. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. © NYPL

2. Gay Activists at First Gay Pride Parade, Christopher Street, New York 1970; printed 2021, Arthur Tress. Gelatin silver print. Getty Museum. Gift of David Knaus. © Arthur Tress Archive LLC.

3. A Woman Like Eve, Netherlands 1979, Dir Nouchka van Brakel.

4. Julius Reuben. From Fierce London, 2013. © Ajamu X.

5. Javi Vargas Sotomayor, “Huayco epidemia” (Constelación Chuquichinchay), 2017, Digital print on cotton paper. Courtesy of the artist.