Arts & Entertainment
Images and outrage
Controversy aside, ‘Hide/Seek’ is a groundbreaking show
A still from the video that caused controversy in the current "Hide/Seek" exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery.
Catcher Yogi Berra once famously called it “deja vu all over again.” But it was Karl Marx who perhaps defined it best as “when history repeats itself — the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”
That was the feeling at least for a moment last week, when officials at the National Portrait Gallery censored a video component of its exhibit titled “Hide/Seek,” the show about gay and lesbian sexual love and its impact on American art. Complaints by right-wing Catholics over 11 seconds of a depiction of ants crawling on a crucifix was enough for NPG director Martin E. Sullivan to decide to turn tail and yank an entire half-hour-long 1987 video, titled “A Fire in My Belly” — a meditation on the ravages of AIDS by David Wojnarowicz, the gay artist who died from HIV-related causes in 1992.
Shades of Robert Mapplethorpe and the cancellation of an exhibit of his erotically charged photos by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1989. And now as then GOP politicians are on the attack under the banner of “no promo homo,” and also as before, another gallery — this time Flashpoint — courageously took up the challenge and began to show the offending video.
But what about the groundbreaking NPG show itself, which opened in October and runs through mid-February? It’s stunning with 105 pieces of art from the canon of America’s greatest artists of the past century and more, depicting the ways in which their sexual orientations expressed themselves — usually coded and concealed — visually on canvas and other surfaces and as images in motion.
The exhibit is titled as a playful reminder of the childhood game of hide-and-seek, when concealment is the first task for survival. “HIDE/SEEK — Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” with its range and breadth of seeing and finding works of art that dare speak, however sotto voce, the name of taboo love, boldly snaps in two the several decades-long taboo, welded firmly in place after the Mapplethorpe fiasco, of acknowledging same-sex desire in major U.S. museums.
The range of artists begins with Thomas Eakins and his scenes of naked boys swimming and passes through other giants of American painting — John Singer Sargent, George Bellow, Georgia O’Keefe, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and others — to our own new century. But as co-curator Jonathan D. Katz contends, “seeking and noticing” the sexual subtexts of their work “are two very different acts,” and this exhibit “seeks to turn such seeing into noticing.”
As with their work itself, nothing is as it seems at first. Therefore, “HIDE/SEEK” features, says Katz, “straight artists representing gay figures, gay artists representing straight figures, gay artists representing gay figures, and even straight artists representing straight figures, when of interest to gay people/culture.”
For Katz, considered the dean of academic study of gay and lesbian art history, this has been the curatorial work of more than 15 years. Katz shaped this exhibit with Smithsonian historian David C. Ward, who has openly called Katz “my camerado — per Walt (Whitman).”
Ward also says that Katz, who founded the gay and lesbian studies program at Yale University and is the first tenured professor in LGBT studies in the nation, “is a model of the engaged scholar” and as a result ran afoul of academic norms in the past for his avowed interest in these subjects.
“He’s someone who managed to be thrown out of two institutions, the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins University,” Ward says, “for daring in the 1970s to want to write about gay and lesbian Americans.”
In the magisterial catalogue accompanying the exhibit, Katz confesses that their choice of subjects is “firmly canonical” and rooted in “the register of great American artists … within the American mainstream,” so that many artists, less well known, have been excluded. The key objective, says Katz, is to show that “the assumption that same-sex desire is at best tangential to the history of American art” is “utterly unsupportable.”
With “HIDE/SEEK,” and even with the Wojnarowicz censorship fresh at hand, it now seems safe to say, in Katz’s words, that the “pervasive silencing of same-sex desire in accounts of American portrait painting” is over.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the exhibit comes in its revelation that American artists at the turn of the 20th century could in fact be much more open about their subject matter than those of the mid-20th century in a period haunted by sexual McCarthyism and the hunt for “reds and gays” in government, the schools and the clergy. During that era only on the fringes of the entertainment world, and there not always, could different sexual proclivities find open or even closeted refuge.
In other words, same-sex desire could be expressed more freely in the arts at that earlier time “prior to the advent of ‘homosexuality’ as an available category,” says Katz, even though same-sex desire acted upon was literally a crime. But this was before an explicit “homo/hetero binary” was established as the enforced norm, he says, and before “gay” and “straight” were paired as strict opposites instead of subtle inflection points on a spectrum of the sort spelled out by Alfred Kinsey in his scale of zero to six.
Key to this transformation, Katz says, was when “sexual behavior evolve(d) into sexual identity, from what you did to what you were.” In the earlier era, after all, sexual identity was premised not on the gender of one’s sexual partner but rather on one’s own gendered role —insertive or receptive — in the sex act. As Katz notes, “it was socially acceptable to penetrate a queer” for sexual relief and as “tolerable stand-ins for women.”
Thus, Katz begins the exhibit catalogue with a searching exegesis of George Bellows’ print from 1917, “The Shower Bath,” where two naked men are depicted front and center – one thin and effeminate, looking seductively over his shoulder and thrusting his posterior provocatively at a second man, beefy of build, butch and masculine, whose towel barely conceals his sexual arousal. Opposites in every way, “they are made a pair,” says Katz, and what he calls “the odd couple” are “the focal point of this image.” But the forward homoeroticism of the Bellows print did not hamper its commercial success at the time. And Bellows himself was a man devoted to his wife and children.
There is, of course much more in this exhibit, with many works coded with layers of longing, that NPG director Sullivan — before the controversy erupted over the video — spoke of “with pride” as offering “a new lens with which to view the panorama of American life.” It is indeed, as he said earlier, “a sumptuous survey of more than a century of American portraiture,” asking “new questions and risking new interpretations.” It dares to be at once risky and risque.
With portraits such as these, we enter the lives of others, to explore how identities were forged in the past. With portraits such as these, we end up staring at ourselves.
Books
Love or fear flying you’ll devour ‘Why Fly’
New book chronicles a lifetime obsession with aircraft
‘Why Fly’
By Caroline Paul
c. 2026, Bloomsbury
$27.99/256 pages
Tray table folded up.
Check. Your seat is in the upright position, the airflow above your head is just the way you like it, and you’re ready to go. The flight crew is making final preparations. The lights are off and the plane is backing up. All you need now is “Why Fly” by Caroline Paul, and buckle up.
When she was very young, Paul was “obsessed” with tales of adventure, devouring accounts written by men of their derring-do. The only female adventure-seeker she knew about then was Amelia Earhart; later, she learned of other adventuresome women, including aviatrix Bessie Coleman, and Paul was transfixed.
Time passed; Paul grew up to create a life of adventure all her own.
Then, the year her marriage started to fracture, she switched her obsession from general exploits to flight.
Specifically, Paul loves experimental aircraft, some of which, like her “trike,” can be made from a kit at home. Others, like Woodstock, her beloved yellow gyrocopter, are major purchases that operate under different FAA rules. All flying has rules, she says, even if it seems like it should be as freewheeling as the birds it mimics.
She loves the pre-flight checklist, which is pure anticipation as well as a series of safety measures; if only a relationship had the same ritual. Paul loves her hangar, as a place of comfort and for flight in all senses of the word. She enjoys thinking about historic tales of flying, going back before the Wright Brothers, and including a man who went aloft on a lawn chair via helium-filled weather balloons.
The mere idea that she can fly any time is like a gift to Paul.
She knows a lot of people are terrified of flying, but it’s near totally safe: generally, there’s a one in almost 14 million chance of perishing in a commercial airline disaster – although, to Paul’s embarrassment and her dismay, it’s possible that both the smallest planes and the grandest loves might crash.
If you’re a fan of flying, you know what to do here. If you fear it, pry your fingernails off the armrests, take a deep breath, and head to the shelves. “Why Fly” might help you change your mind.
It’s not just that author Caroline Paul enjoys being airborne, and she tells you. It’s not that she’s honest in her explanations of being in love and being aloft. It’s the meditative aura you’ll get as you’re reading this book that makes it so appealing, despite the sometimes technical information that may flummox you between the Zen-ness. It’s not overwhelming; it mixes well with the history Paul includes, biographies, the science, heartbreak, and exciting tales of adventure and risk, but it’s there. Readers and romantics who love the outdoors, can’t resist a good mountain, and crave activity won’t mind it, though, not at all.
If you own a plane – or want to – you’ll want this book, too. It’s a great waiting-at-the-airport tale, or a tuck-in-your-suitcase-for-later read. Find “Why Fly” and you’ll see that it’s an upright kind of book.
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Theater
Out actor Kevin Cahoon on starring role in ‘Chez Joey’
Arena production adapted from Broadway classic ‘Pal Joey’
‘Chez Joey’
Through March 15
Arena Stage
1101 Sixth St., S.W.
Tickets start at $93
Arenastage.org
As Melvin Snyder in the new musical “Chez Joey,” out actor Kevin Cahoon plays a showbiz society columnist who goes by the name Mrs. Knickerbocker. He functions as a sort of liaison between café society and Chicago’s Black jazz scene circa 1940s. It’s a fun part replete with varied insights, music, and dance.
“Chez Joey” is adapted from the Broadway classic “Pal Joey” by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. It’s inspired by John O’Hara’s stories based on the exploits of a small-time nightclub singer published in The New Yorker.
A warm and humorous man, Cahoon loves his work. At just six, he began his career as a rodeo clown in Houston. He won the Star Search teen division at 13 singing songs like “Some People” from “Gypsy.” He studied theater at New York University and soon after graduating set to work playing sidekicks and comedic roles.
Over the years, Cahoon has played numerous queer parts in stage productions including “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” “La Cage aux Folles,” “Rocky Horror” as well as Peanut in “Shucked,” and George the keyboardist in “The Wedding Singer,” “a sort of unicorn of its time,” says Cahoon.
Co-directed by Tony Goldwyn and the great Savion Glover, “Chez Joey” is a terrific and fun show filled with loads of talent. Its relevant new book is by Richard Lagravenese.
On a recent Monday off from work, Cahoon shared some thoughts on past and current happenings.
WASHINGTON BLADE: Is there a through line from Kevin, the six-year-old rodeo clown, to who we see now at Arena Stage?
KEVIN CAHOON: Anytime I want to land a joke in a theater piece it goes back to that rodeo clown. It doesn’t matter if it’s Arena’s intimate Kreeger Theatre or the big rodeo at the huge Houston Astrodome.
I was in the middle stadium and there was an announcer — a scene partner really. And we were doing a back and forth in hopes of getting laughs. At that young age I was trying to understand what it takes to get laughs. It’s all about timing. Every line.
BLADE: Originally, your part in “Chez Joey” Melvin was Melba who sings “Zip,” a clever woman reporter’s song. It was sort of a star feature, where they could just pop in a star in the run of “Pal Joey.”
CAHOON: That’s right. And in former versions it was played by Martha Plimpton and before her Elaine Stritch. For “Chez Joey,” we switched gender and storyline.
We attempted to do “Zip” up until two days before we had an audience at Arena. Unexpectedly they cut “Zip” and replaced it with a fun number called “I Like to Recognize the Tune,” a song more connected to the story.
BLADE: Wow. You must be a quick study.
CAHOON: Well, we’re working with a great band.
BLADE: You’ve played a lot of queer parts. Any thoughts on queer representation?
CAHOON: Oh yes, definitely. And I’ve been very lucky that I’ve had the chance to portray these characters and introduce them to the rest of the world. I feel honored.
After originating Edna, the hyena on Broadway in “The Lion King,” I left that to do “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” as standby for John Cameron Mitchell, doing one show a week for him.
Everyone thought I was crazy to leave the biggest musical of our time with a personal contract and getting paid more money that I’d ever made to get $400 a week at the downtown Jane Street Theatre in a dicey neighborhood.
At the time, I really felt like I was with cool kids. I guess I was. And I never regretted it.
BLADE: When you play new parts, do you create new backstories for the role?
CAHOON: Every single time! For Melvin, I suggested a line about chorus boys on Lakeshore Drive.
BLADE: What’s up next for Kevin Cahoon?
CAHOON: I’m about to do the New York Theatre Workshop Gala; I’ve been doing it for nine years in a row. It’s a huge job. I’ll also be producing the “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” opening on Broadway this spring; it’s a queer-centric uptown vogue ball with gay actor André de Shields reprising his role as “Old Deuteronomy.”
BLADE: There’s a huge amount of talent onstage in “Chez Joey.”
CAHOON: There is. I’m sharing a dressing room with Myles Frost who plays Joey. He won accolades for playing Michael Jackson on Broadway. We’ve become great friends. He’s a miracle to watch on stage. And Awa [Sal Secka], a D.C. local, is great. Every night the audience falls head over heels for her. When this show goes to New York, Awa will, no doubt, be a giant star.
BLADE: Do you think “Chez Joey” might be Broadway bound?
CAHOON: I have a good feeling it is. I’ve done shows out of town that have high hopes and pedigree, but don’t necessarily make it. “Chez Joey” is a small production, it’s funny, and audiences seem to love it.
The Capital Pride Alliance held the annual Pride Reveal event at The Schuyler at The Hamilton Hotel on Thursday, Feb. 26. The theme for this year’s Capital Pride was announced: “Exist. Resist. Have the audacity!”
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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