An Exhibition Honors The Many Experiences of Queer Photographic History

Queer Moments at Lightwork Gallery in Syracuse, NY highlights the diversity of queer experience and the power of photography to affirm and sustain difference.

For nearly five decades, Light Work Gallery has amassed a photography collection donated by the artists who participated in the organization’s varied programs, including artist residencies and exhibitions. It’s a unique collecting model, one driven by the artist’s sense of their best work and not external factors or input such as art market viability or donor eccentricities. Moreover, the 4,000-piece collection sustains a counter narrative to other institutional photography collections that do not reflect the diverse identity markers of contemporary makers. 

Curator Ryan Krueger elaborates on those themes in Queer Moments: Selections from the Light Work Collection. On view at the Syracuse, NY gallery through October 14th, the installation highlights 14 artists whose photographs convey quiet, yet remarkable moments in queer history from the 1990s to now. 

Krueger, who works at Light Work Gallery as the Digital Services Coordinator, wrote at length about the project in our email exchange, noting how the Light Work collection charts photography’s material and aesthetic evolution over 48 years and why the perennial quest for representation is so important.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with Ryan Krueger

Mirror Study (_2140475),2018 © Paul Mpagi Sapuya

Roula Seikaly: Is Queer Moments the first exhibition you’ve curated for Light Work?  Could you describe the experience of curating Queer Moments? 

Ryan Krueger: The Light Work Collection consists primarily of work made by artists who have participated in our programs such as the residency, exhibitions, and grant recipients. Photography collections both public and private intrigue me for the history they share regarding those who have established and operated the collection.

When you approach an established collection such as this, it is important to reflect on the internal decisions made over time to amplify underrepresented and emerging artists who broached meaningful subject matter such as race, sexuality, and gender. In developing Queer Moments, I was granted permission to work firsthand with a photography collection that contextualizes the rapid change in the way artists have defined photography over the last 48 years.

The experience was a reflection on an organization that I work for and the decisions made overtime to preserve the representation of a community close to me. This was a very personal opportunity and a generous offer that I am extremely grateful for as it was rooted in the trust and encouragement from my colleagues. 

12 Lauras, 1993. © Laura Aguilar

Seikaly: Did you start this project knowing that you wanted to highlight queer artists in the Light Work collection? How did you settle on the 14 featured photographers? 

Krueger: Queer Moments includes photographs by Laura Aguilar, Samantha Box, Jess T. Dugan, John Edmonds, Ajamu (Ikwe-Tyehimba), Mark McKnight, Rory Mulligan, Billy Quinn, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Pacifico Silano, Clarissa Sligh, Linn Underhill, and Albert Winn. My inspiration to pull this selection started with the work of the late Laura Aguilar and Albert J. Winn.

Focusing on these artists was to draw a line between those who participated with Light Work in the 1990’s to contemporary photographs as recent as 2019. This was to make a gesture towards understanding the contemporary perspective of LGBTQ+ history as defined by artists. It was important to highlight the many ranges of experiences that define queerness and photographic making in the selection process.

Additionally, it was important to situate artists who might not be commonly curated together to emphasize the significance of the collection and its reflection to the larger notion of LGBTQ+ history being situated in photography collections such as these. I have always searched for what is queer in the straight world. Visibility can speak volumes to those who might not see enough of a reflection of us in the everyday world.

Where you find those representations are not easy to ignore when it comes to a history as loosely defined as LGBTQ+ history.   

Phantom, 2017 © John Edmonds

Seikaly: Could you talk about the psychological effect of seeing this work, these diverse material and conceptual representations of queer life, aggregated in an installation? 

Krueger: Photography has always been significant for its power to make visible the unseen and unknown aspects of our world. The impact of seeing this diverse range of photographs allows for a curriculum to be made regarding the schools of thought applied to photography overtime by queer artists. It is important to continue championing the work of artists like Laura Aguilar, Albert J. Winn, Lynn Underhill, and Billy Quinn who were the main influence in creating Queer Moments.

Contextualizing these artists with contemporary photographs addresses a never- ending urgency for visibility that inspires image-makers who define photography as something important to LGBTQ+ History. Queer Moments embodies a range of diverse genres in contemporary photography including documentary, experimental, and conceptual work. Every single artist on the walls speaks volumes on what can be learned at the intersection of identity and representation while reflecting on what the responsibility is of a photographer. 

Akedah, 2006 © Albert J. Winn

Seikaly: You work for Light Work Lab as the Digital Services Coordinator. Could you talk about looking at this work as a printer and curator? 

Krueger: There are many different techniques used by artists included in Queer Moments. The selection shows us a variety of silver gelatin, chromogenic, and archival pigment prints displaying the shift in technology over the last thirty years. By trade, I work as a printmaker with a deep love for the craft of printmaking ranging from traditional processes such as photogravure and lithography to wet lab darkroom and dry lab inkjet printing.

I have a lot of admiration for photographers who print their own work while having a relationship to the materiality of printmaking. Looking at this work from the perspective of both printmaker and curator comes with a lot of enthusiasm for both craft and concept. Each print reflects the hands of these artists, some who are no longer present in the physical world, but who are remembered by their contribution to photography.

When you look at the quality of craft in all these prints, you really start to understand just how important the printing process was for all of the included artists. 

Jamie and Ann, 2016 © Jess T. Dugan

Untitled, Nov. 98, 1998 © Ajamu (Ikwe-Tyehimba)

Seikaly: What does “moments” in the exhibition title refer to? Is it scenes captured in the exhibiting artists’ work, or the rise of queer popular and political culture in the last 30 years, or both/neither? 

Krueger: Moments refers to the fact that not all queer experiences are the same. These are individual single narrative photographs that result in moments of vulnerability, intimacy, and urgency to be shared with us from artists who are all from different life experiences. Independently, all of these photographs speak volume and I wished to respect the work by not allowing myself to force narrative around the images by drawing assumption in defining what a queer photograph is or is not but more importantly how these artists queer photography. Queer Moments: Selections from the Light Work Collection acts rather as a celebration of these artists and their contribution to LGBTQ+ history while reflecting on the intentions of Light Work as an inclusive and safe space for LGBTQ+ artists.  

The Light Work Collection is very much a legacy collection. It tells the story of Light Work, but it resembles a home to many amazing artists who have graciously allowed us their time. When an artist donates to our collection, we do not pick or choose which photograph is accessioned. That decision is specifically in the artist’s hands. It’s the responsibility of an organization like Light Work to accurately represent and preserve the intention of each piece in our collection. When you take the time to contemplate the Light Work Collection, you can easily find many historical moments in photography from the 4,000 objects that exist.

To look for queer moments in a collection like this is a subjective experience that aligns with my curatorial agenda but these are the voices that spoke volumes in defining what made this collection important. 

Ropeswing, 2010 © Rory Mulligan

Clifford Prince King’s installation for “We Used to Lay Together” at Lightwork

Seikaly: Are there resonances between Queer Moments and Clifford Prince King: We Used to Lay Together, which is also on view at Light Work? 

Krueger: Right now, the Hallway Gallery and Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery at Light Work defines a thirty-year emphasis on the history of photography at a crossroads with race, sexuality, gender, and religion. When entering Light Work, Queer Moments welcomes you to We Used to Lay Together by Clifford Prince King. In that welcoming, there is a gesture made between both exhibitions knowing Clifford’s work is adjacent to his contemporaries.

With an exhibition like this, Light Work can assist in canonizing Clifford’s work alongside those who compliment and contribute to the same conversations within the history of photography. Clifford and I met in our early twenties when we both lived in Portland, OR. It is truly a full circle moment to have worked alongside Clifford in developing We Used to Lay Together now that we’re many years away from when we first met.

When I was making my selections for Queer Moments, I very much was reflecting on Clifford’s work.  As much as I wish to draw a historical thread between the artists in Queer Moments, it was also important to know Clifford was part of that history. I understand Queer Moments as a welcoming to We Used to Lay Together.

Jake in Transition from Female to Male Series, or Through the Mirror and What Clarissa Found, 2000 © Clarissa Sligh

The Black Place IV, 2018 – 2019 © Mark McKnight

Seikaly: Do you have ideas for future exhibitions? What’s next for you? 

Krueger: Seeing Queer Moments travel would be an important next step for an exhibition like this. Traveling this exhibition would allow us to expand the works on view and provide an emphasis on the value of the Light Work Collection outside of Syracuse, NY. We are reaching our 50-year anniversary at Light Work, and I think the collection is a strong example of the legacy within this organization. For future exhibitions, I hope the collection is given attention by voices outside of the organization to declare its historical value with the ability to curate from these drawers. 

Outside of Light Work, I think regularly about the work of documentary photographer and filmmaker Linda Kliewer from Portland, OR. Linda was a mentor of mine when I studied photography and through that relationship I was able to spend a lot of time with the photographs she made from the 1970s through the 1990s that focused specifically on gay visibility. Linda owns the largest archive of documentary photography depicting LGBTQ+ youth in the state of Oregon through the 1990s. She worked as Producer on Ballot Measure 9, a Sundance Film Festival award-winning documentary from 1992. More importantly, she made groundbreaking self-portraiture that is criminally underrepresented and deserves to be shown more frequently. What’s next for me is to find a home for Linda’s early photography work because it’s so important to champion the work of the artists who made it possible to make work like your own. She’s my biggest influence of all time and I would love to see her have her moment in this world of photography.