MANHATTAN — LGBT artists have had a dedicated home on Wooster Street to show their work ever since art collectors J. Frederic "Fritz" Lohman and Charles W. Leslie founded the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation in 1990.
That space is now moving up in the art world, becoming the city's latest museum. The newly accredited Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art will celebrate its transformation on Tuesday with an exhibition of 45 works pulled from its 6,000-piece permanent collection.
"Creating a Queer Museum" includes work by Robert Mapplethorpe, Keith Haring, Catherine Opie, Andy Warhol and the documentary maker Joan E. Biren, who goes by the initials JEB.
Museum spokesman Jerry Kajpust said being designated as a museum by the state Board of Regents allows Leslie-Lohman to offer more.
"This establishes us as more of a credible institution in the arts community and with [art] lending institutions," he said.
Leslie-Lohman, which is located at 26 Wooster St., will host now more educational programs, like seminars on the history of Renaissance art from an LGBT perspective and the male form as depicted beginning in early Greek art.
When Leslie and Lohman first applied for IRS tax-exempt status in 1988, it was denied on the basis of the gallery's name, Kajpust said.
"[The IRS] kept saying if you take the word 'gay' out, we'll approve it. And [Leslie and Lohman] said 'No way," he said.
After a two-year fight, the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation became a nonprofit.
LGBT art faces different hurdles today, Kajpust said. Plenty of museums show the work of gay artists, but most glaze over how artists' sexual preference or gender expression affects their work, he said.
"With Jasper Johns, for example, you can avoid [gay issues] and say that it's just a picture of a flag. We want to bring all of those issues out, though," he said. "The silence is over."
"Creating a Queer Museum," which mixes work by established and emerging artists, will kick off with an opening reception Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m.
