Queer Gear

Aug 15

From buttons and t-shirts to leather and lace, clothing acts as a way for the LGBTQ+ community to express themselves and their queerness. One’s fashion choices can affirm identity and critique the status quo. Clothing lives in a uniquely liminal space, expressing the inextricable link between the public and private, the individual and collective, and our intimate and civic lives. Clothing is a visual cue to subtly, or not so subtly, signal queerness to others. Differences in dress can be seen as deviant and call into question social norms. By publicly displaying garments from queer Kentuckians, Queer Gear celebrates the vibrant and eclectic histories that these objects tell.

Co-curated by Miriam Kienle and Josh Porter, Queer Gear features clothing from the Faulkner Morgan Archive. Exhibition text contributed by Borealis, Pascalle LeRoy, Kiana White, Sophie DeCorte, Andrew Hahn, Rae Bruce, Christopher Steffan, and Cate Wollert.

Installation Images

Featured Collections

Featured

Rickey Reynolds

Pride Community Services Organization (PCSO)

Now known at the Lexington Pride Center, this collection contains materials spanning decades about PCSO. It is organized by subject and based on the major activities of the PCSO, also known as the Gay Services Organization (GSO) and the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization (GLSO).

Freddy Mills

Freddy Mills has worked for the Kentucky Theatre since 1963. He relates his early years in Lexington, coming to know the gay scene in Lexington, and especially the gay scene of the Kentucky Theatre. Mills talks about his three arrests for obscenity from the soft-core pornographic movies shown at the Kentucky Theatre.

Markus Cross

This session with Markus chronicles his life with Crossings, the gay bar at 117 North Limestone, including its founding, early activities, and its notoriously cruisy basement. Markus also talks about the Colts leather group, the bar’s all-male persona, cowboy nights, etc.

Edwin Hackney

Edwin Hackney was a social worker and lifelong gay activist. In the early 1980s, he implemented the Gay Services Organization Gay Line which later became GLSO Pride Center. He was a founding member of AVOL Kentucky, which in the early days was a volunteer mobilization effort to do whatever it took to care for those suffering from HIV disease when resources were scarce. He gave mental health help to the volunteers who were aiding the sick. He also served as an officer for NALGAP (National Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Addiction Professionals and their allies).

Robert (Bob) Morgan

The Robert Morgan Collection is a group of photographs and ephemera that belonged to Robert (Bob) Morgan, a queer man and artist from Lexington, Kentucky.

Jill Raymond

Jill Raymond delivered this material during her visit to the Faulkner Morgan Archive on January 15, 2019. It includes material from her time imprisoned for refusing to cooperate into the investigation of Susan Saxe and Kathy Power.

Exhibit

Caroline Cassin https://www.thebrandthread.com/

Queer Gear

Installation Images

Featured Collections

Queer, Here, & Everywhere

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