Until 21 May 2023, the exhibition To Be Seen. Queer Lives 1900–1950 can be seen at the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism. For the exhibition, the curators have worked closely with the Forum Queeres Archiv München.
To Be Seen is an exhibition devoted to the stories of LGBTQI+ in Germany in the first half of the twentieth century. Through historical testimony and artistic positions from then and now, it traces queer lives and networks, the areas of freedom enjoyed by LGBTQI+, and the persecution they suffered.
An exhibition catalogue will be published by Hirmer Verlag in February 2023. The exhibition was conceived under the curatorial direction of Karolina Kühn. The Forum Queeres Archiv München worked closely with Karolina Kühn and the curatorial team (Juliane Bischoff, Angela Hermann, Sebastian Huber, Anna Straetmans, Ulla-Britta Vollhardt) and provided the NS Documentation Centre with several archival materials for the exhibition, such as original issues of the lesbian magazine Die Freundin – das ideale Freundschaftsblatt, which was published in Berlin from 1924 to 1933. Albert Knoll and Philipp Gufler from the Forum also advised the NS-Doku on the conception of the exhibition.
We are particularly happy with the presentation of paintings and drawings by Paul Hoecker on the first basement floor. Paul Hoecker was the first modern professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and represented Germany three times at the Venice Biennale. A scandal related to his homosexuality forced him to resign from the professorship in 1898. He died in 1910 after many years of living in Italy. His work subsequently fell into oblivion, and an institutional tribute has yet to be paid. In October 2019, a research group on Paul Hoecker was formed at the Forum Queeres Archiv München, working closely with the curators of the To Be Seen exhibition for the intervention on Paul Hoecker at the Lernforum. The research group has brought Hoecker out of oblivion and is showing here for the first time insights into his life and his connection to the homosexual emancipation movement around Magnus Hirschfeld.
In cooperation with artists, To Be Seen opens a dialogue between history and contemporary art, also in the form of an intervention in the permanent exhibition and in the outdoor area. With artistic contributions by Katharina Aigner, Maximiliane Baumgartner, Zackary Drucker, Chitra Ganesh, Philipp Gufler, Lena Rosa Händle, Zoltán Lesi, Henrik Olesen, Ricardo Portilho, Wolfgang Tillmans, Karol Radziszewski and others. The exhibition is framed by a wide-ranging accompanying and educational programme on topics such as local urban history, intersectionality, drag and queer identity in literature and film.
