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‘Fight the Power’

From ‘Homocats’ to gender-bending video installations, region’s galleries not offering same old thing

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HOMOCATS, museum, gay news, Washington Blade
HOMOCATS, museum, gay news, Washington Blade

‘HOMOCATS’ (Courtesy Transformer)

“Fade 2 Grey,” a solo exhibition by artist Adrian Loving featuring six video art installations that explore androgyny, gender roles, fashion and sensationalism of style in ‘80s pop music through artists such as Patti Smith, David Bowie, Grace Jones, Sylvester, Boy George, Prince and more, opens with a reception tonight from 6-9 p.m. and runs through April 25. It’s at Vivid Solutions Gallery inside the Anacostia Arts Center (1231 Good Hope Road, S.E.). Visit vividsolutionsgallery.com for full details.

Transformer (1404 P St., N.W.) is featuring “HOMOCATS: Fight the Power” by Brooklyn-based artist J. Morrison through March 15. Morrison, who is gay, combines the internet phenomenon of cats and socio-political LGBT issues on a psychedelic wallpaper design and printed c-prints. His work pays homage to historic queer symbols like the rainbow flag and pink triangle.

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‘Behind Fourth Wall’ (Courtesy Royal Books)

AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center (8633 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring, Md.) and Royal Books presents “Behind the Fourth Wall: Actors and Directors on the Set, Photographs 1926-2001,” a behind-the-scenes movie exhibit. It opens today and runs through May 26. The exhibit is a collection of vintage behind-the-scenes of classic films from the silent era to the 20th century. The photos are candid and were taken by famous photographers such as Mario Tursi and Bob Willoughby, working professionals and anonymous photographers. For more details, visit afi.com/silver.

Kreeger Museum (2401 Foxhall Rd., N.W.) is currently featuring “K@20,” a celebration of the museum’s 20th anniversary, through July 31. The exhibit features 14 D.C.-area artists in a variety of mediums including installations, paintings, sculptures and paper to video. On April 16 from 6-7:30 p.m., a roundtable discussion will occur. For more information, visit kreegermuseum.com.

Touchstone Gallery (901 New York Ave., N.W.) presents “Light and Dark,” an exhibit that explores darkness and light in the spring equinox, through March 30. Touchstone member artists produced various forms of artwork such as ceramics, paintings, sculpture and drawing. For more details, visit touchstonegallery.com.

Corcoran Gallery (500 17th St., N.W.) features Rineke Dijkstra’s “The Krazyhouse, Liverpool UK, 2009” a four-channel video installation exhibit, March 29-June 15. Dikstra filmed guests at a popular dance club in Liverpool. It shows five young people (Megan, Simon, Nikky, Phillip and Dee) as they dance and sing to music they selected themselves. The half-hour show intends to look at each individual in a broader social spectrum.

Corcoran Gallery is also showing “Jennifer Steinkamp and Jimmy Johnson: Loop,” a visual art and music installation, March 15-April 20. Visitors are surrounded by digital colorful rope and can see their shadows on the walls. The combination makes for a multi-colored three dimension moving abstraction. Admission for the gallery is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and students and free for children under 12. Visit corcoran.org for more details.

Gallery B (770 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, Md.) is showing “Ideal Form,” featuring paintings and drawings by artist Robert O’Brien, through March 29. O’Brien is a Maryland native and received his Certificate in Painting from Washington Studio School. His work has been shown in galleries throughout the area. For more details, visit bethesda.org.

Foundry Gallery (1314 18th St., N.W.) presents Ana Elisa Benavent’s “Shifting Gears” through March 30. Benavent uses color expressionism to demonstrate revival, healing, reinvention and change through a painting interpretation of riding in a car. Visit foundrygallery.org for more information.

The Phillips Collection (1600 21st St., N.W.) is showing “Intersections: 50-65 Horizon Line” by Jean Meisel, a D.C.-based artist, through May 4. The exhibit displays more than 50 watercolor paintings of horizon lines.

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‘Edward Hopper’s Sunday’ (Courtesy Phillips Collection)

The Phillips Collection is also featuring “Made in the USA,” the most comprehensive on-site installation of the Phillip’s American collection to date, through Aug. 31. The exhibit includes prominent American artists of the late 19th century, as well as a display of Abstract Expressionists. Admission is $12 for adults, $10 for students and seniors and free for members and children under 12. Featured artists are Edward Hopper, Milton Avery, Man Ray and many more. Visit phillipscollection.org for details.

Artisphere (1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, Va.) presents “Coast to Coast” by Empty Stretch, an online photography curation group, April  2-Aug. 3 on the Town Hall Video Wall. Empty Stretch selected approximately 400 photographs that feature different coastlines and bodies of water. The photographs were collected through email submissions and Flickr. Visit artisphere.com for more details.

Hirshhorn (700 Independence Ave., S.W.) is featuring Santiago Sierra and Jorge Galindo in the Hirshhorn’s “Black Box” series with “Los Encargados (Those in Charge)” through May 18. Sierra staged a performance in 2012 with a motorcade of seven black Mercedes-Benz sedans with portraits of prominent Spanish leaders on top. By-standers filmed the spectacle on their phones and the footage can be seen in black and white.

The Smithsonian Craft Show is now in its 32nd year and scheduled for April 10-13 at the National Building Museum (401 F St., N.W.). It features 123 craft artists selected in a “quest for the best” and sale of limited edition and one-of-a-kind works available in 12 different media. Visit Smithsoniancraftshow.org for full details.

And though Gay Day isn’t until September, Hillwood Estate, Museum & Garden always has tons of great events, lectures and concerts on its slate. Visit hillwoodmuseum.org for full details.

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Puerto Rico

Bad Bunny shares Super Bowl stage with Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga

Puerto Rican activist celebrates half time show

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Bad Bunny performs at the Super Bowl halftime show on Feb. 8, 2026. (Screen capture via NFL/YouTube)

Bad Bunny on Sunday shared the stage with Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl halftime show in Santa Clara, Calif.

Martin came out as gay in 2010. Gaga, who headlined the 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, is bisexual. Bad Bunny has championed LGBTQ rights in his native Puerto Rico and elsewhere.

“Not only was a sophisticated political statement, but it was a celebration of who we are as Puerto Ricans,” Pedro Julio Serrano, president of the LGBTQ+ Federation of Puerto Rico, told the Washington Blade on Monday. “That includes us as LGBTQ+ people by including a ground-breaking superstar and legend, Ricky Martin singing an anti-colonial anthem and showcasing Young Miko, an up-and-coming star at La Casita. And, of course, having queer icon Lady Gaga sing salsa was the cherry on the top.”

La Casita is a house that Bad Bunny included in his residency in San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital, last year. He recreated it during the halftime show.

“His performance brought us together as Puerto Ricans, as Latin Americans, as Americans (from the Americas) and as human beings,” said Serrano. “He embraced his own words by showcasing, through his performance, that the ‘only thing more powerful than hate is love.’”

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Drag

PHOTOS: Drag in rural Virginia

Performers face homophobia, find community

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Four drag performers dance in front of an anti-LGBTQ protester outside the campus of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. (Blade photo by Landon Shackelford)

Drag artists perform for crowds in towns across Virginia. The photographer follows Gerryatrick, Shenandoah, Climaxx, Emerald Envy among others over eight months as they perform at venues in the Virginia towns of Staunton, Harrisonburg and Fredericksburg.

(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)

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Books

New book explores homosexuality in ancient cultures

‘Queer Thing About Sin’ explains impact of religious credo in Greece, Rome

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(Book cover image courtesy of Bloomsbury)

‘The Queer Thing About Sin’
By Harry Tanner
c.2025, Bloomsbury
$28/259 pages

Nobody likes you very much.

That’s how it seems sometimes, doesn’t it? Nobody wants to see you around, they don’t want to hear your voice, they can’t stand the thought of your existence and they’d really rather you just go away. It’s infuriating, and in the new book “The Queer Thing About Sin” by Harry Tanner, you’ll see how we got to this point.

When he was a teenager, Harry Tanner says that he thought he “was going to hell.”

For years, he’d been attracted to men and he prayed that it would stop. He asked for help from a lay minister who offered Tanner websites meant to repress his urges, but they weren’t the panacea Tanner hoped for. It wasn’t until he went to college that he found the answers he needed and “stopped fearing God’s retribution.”

Being gay wasn’t a sin. Not ever, but he “still wanted to know why Western culture believed it was for so long.”

Historically, many believe that older men were sexual “mentors” for teenage boys, but Tanner says that in ancient Greece and Rome, same-sex relationships were common between male partners of equal age and between differently-aged pairs, alike. Clarity comes by understanding relationships between husbands and wives then, and careful translation of the word “boy,” to show that age wasn’t a factor, but superiority and inferiority were.

In ancient Athens, queer love was considered to be “noble” but after the Persians sacked Athens, sex between men instead became an acceptable act of aggression aimed at conquered enemies. Raping a male prisoner was encouraged but, “Gay men became symbols of a depraved lack of self-control and abstinence.”

Later Greeks believed that men could turn into women “if they weren’t sufficiently virile.” Biblical interpretations point to more conflict; Leviticus specifically bans queer sex but “the Sumerians actively encouraged it.” The Egyptians hated it, but “there are sporadic clues that same-sex partners lived together in ancient Egypt.”

Says Tanner, “all is not what it seems.”

So you say you’re not really into ancient history. If it’s not your thing, then “The Queer Thing About Sin” won’t be, either.

Just know that if you skip this book, you’re missing out on the kind of excitement you get from reading mythology, but what’s here is true, and a much wider view than mere folklore. Author Harry Tanner invites readers to go deep inside philosophy, religion, and ancient culture, but the information he brings is not dry. No, there are major battles brought to life here, vanquished enemies and death – but also love, acceptance, even encouragement that the citizens of yore in many societies embraced and enjoyed. Tanner explains carefully how religious credo tied in with homosexuality (or didn’t) and he brings readers up to speed through recent times.

While this is not a breezy vacation read or a curl-up-with-a-blanket kind of book, “The Queer Thing About Sin” is absolutely worth spending time with. If you’re a thinking person and can give yourself a chance to ponder, you’ll like it very much.

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