some of my stuff is rather on the
naughtiest side yes you were saying
that is a piece of queer art right there
we have preserved a lot of stuff that
would have ordinarily been destroyed
this is Charles Leslie when police
raided the Stonewall Inn in 1969 they
were met with a fierce resistance that
raged on for six days within that crowd
of queer and trans activists was Charles
Leslie who that same month used his love
for queer art to make a statement of
visibility for gay and lesbian love
which would one day become the Leslie
Loman Museum at a time when homoerotic
imagery was discredited as pornography
Charles and his partner Fritz Loman
worked tirelessly to showcase and
protect these works of art which would
normally be devalued or even destroyed
because of LGBT themes 50 years later
Charles continues his mission so all
people can admire these inspiring works
of art I'm Javier windows and this isn't
just our history this is legendary
[Applause]
when you see this picture which was
painted by a gay artist inspired by a
poem by a gay poets I've got a
paraphrase the poem for you because you
get how powerful this kind of thing can
be it's called the mirror in the Hall a
young man an amateur athlete on weekends
is delivering a package to a grand
mansion he stands in the vestibule
waiting for a receipt he turns towards
the mirror and fixes his tie he gets the
receipt and leaves but the mirror the
ancient mirror who has seen and seen and
seen throughout his long life is in a
state of ecstasy because it has looked
upon pure beauty for a few moments
that's that point well when Fritz and I
first got to know each other we both
discovered that we had discrete but
interesting small collections
independently so it was just another
thing that bonded us something we looked
for and and found interesting and and in
all our travels and we traveled
everywhere in the world we looked for it
and we surprisingly found it and
sometimes very unexpected places and our
our collection began to jointly grow and
as you as you may know we have almost
30,000 pieces in the museum collection
now one of the impulses in in developing
the exhibitions and showing them was
political sort of in the spirit of we're
here we're queer get used to it we sent
out a plain brown envelope saying you
and your friends are invited to a week
weekend exhibition of homoerotic art at
the Leslie Loman loft that was about
noon till 10:00 Friday Saturday and
Sunday and of course everyone was
enthusiastic about it we were everyone
was having a good time in early Soho we
assumed maybe we'd get 70 or 80 people
over the weekend
suddenly by the end of the weekend we
had over 300 people coming in and out we
were we were so against the law in Soho
we weren't even legal here yet it was an
enlightening moment you know there's a
world waiting for this that night of the
Stonewall event about two o'clock in the
morning we got a call from a friend in
the village he said you've got to come
to the village immediately I said what I
said Craig were sleeping what what he
said you've got to come now I can't talk
and we heard these people are yelling
and screaming in the background
so we got up you know what the village
is right here so we got up walked into
the village it looked like a a world
riot was going on hundreds and hundreds
of people storming around the city and
had the cops backing off by the way
someone in City Hall got smart and
decided that they shouldn't turn it into
a police riot one stonewall happened
that was the beginning of the change
[Music]
the 70s well as you know they were like
a sexual fever dream here in New York M
it is a crazy decade and we kept
developing a clientele for artists and
then of course the plague struck and
everything collapsed and then we heard
about this gay cancer or something we
thought it sounded so ludicrous we paid
no attention to us the next decade was
like a nightmare decade the 80s
nightmare nightmare we had two men died
in our house because their families had
dumped them we were constantly at
bedsides and that memorials that it
funerals and it Jesus God in heaven it
was horrifying but it it did spur us on
to insist on saving their work I mean
you know that's that's what they left
it became a crusade with us to save work
that was absolutely endangered and very
often destroyed willfully wantedly
disgustingly destroyed
[Music]
the 50th anniversary of the beginnings
of the Leslie Loman Museum of gay and
lesbian art when we had our first
exhibition in this space for one weekend
that was the seedling I mean we have
preserved a lot of stuff that would have
ordinarily been destroyed and of course
the world has opened up so much in many
ways since then I mean we now have these
these gay superstars I'm glad that we
saved what we did when we saved it
because otherwise it would be gone every
art phenomenon in history has evolved a
beginning like a period of growth and
then a kind of plateau of final some
kind of it some level of acceptance I
think people who have the aesthetic I
recognize aren't when they see it and
they and and if it's a really refined
eye they don't really care what the
subject matter is so long as it is a
masterful present rendition
[Music]
and fifty years later we now are not
going to go away the museum is here to
stay
[Music]
hi everyone thank you so much for
watching this episode of legendary if
you want more check out the full
legendary playlist and be sure to
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you next time