Mobile Museum Schooling the World on Trans History

MOTHA (Museum of Transgender Hirstory & Art), founded by artist Chris E. Vargas in 2013, can be described as an exciting "kunst" museum. Kunst is a German word meaning "art," but in this context, it carries a deeper connotation associated with high art or artistic expression that challenges conventional norms. MOTHA fits this definition perfectly because it transcends traditional museum models, pushing boundaries in how transgender history and art are represented. Instead of housing a static collection, MOTHA is a dynamic, nomadic institution that critically explores transgender narratives through temporary exhibitions, performances, panel discussions, and public programs across various locations.

One of the central ideas behind MOTHA is its ongoing critique of how transgender history is visualized and institutionalized in contemporary museum practices. It does not have a fixed location but instead operates in collaboration with other museums, like the Queer California: Untold Stories exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California in 2019​ (MOTHA)(AnOther Magazine). This approach allows the museum to challenge historical erasure and exclusion of transgender narratives by mainstream cultural institutions. The museum's transitory nature reflects the fluidity of transgender identities themselves, making it a vital space for ongoing dialogue and education.

MOTHA’s importance lies in its mission to question how a visual history of transgender life can or should be constructed, given the relatively recent emergence of the language surrounding trans identities. It plays a critical role in amplifying voices and stories often marginalized or overlooked by mainstream institutions, as well as recontextualizing significant historical events, such as the Compton’s Cafeteria riots, which predate Stonewall​.

For more information about MOTHA, you can explore its latest projects and history on its official site.

First Ever LGBTQ+ Rare Books Auction

“Queer history has long remained invisible,” writes Eric Marcus in the preface to a catalog of rare LGBTQ+ books and artwork headed to auction in New York on June 20. Little by little in the 50 years since Stonewall, that has changed, and in a bid for supreme visibility, Swann Galleries will host its inaugural “Pride Sale” of material focused entirely on LGBTQ+ creativity. Volumes that were once censored are now celebrated—and, with auction estimates in the hundreds and thousands, they are codified as collectible, perhaps the highest form of praise in the literary marketplace.

An example: In his bicentennial year, Walt Whitman is everywhere, including this auction. This heart-stopping lot is a first edition of his Memoranda of the War (1875-76), inscribed by Whitman “with his love” to Peter Doyle, long considered his most significant romantic partner. Not much is known about Doyle aside from the fact that he fought for the Confederacy while Whitman nursed Union soldiers. (A photograph of the two of them is currently on view at New York’s Morgan Library.) The auction catalog says it best: “A more important association copy of this title is difficult to imagine.” It is estimated at $50,000-75,000. > Read More

Erotic Passion Desire | Sothebys→

Another great auction happening at Sothebys.

Pierre Molinier | Fleur D’Enfer, Circa 1965

Surrealist Dorothea Tanning | The Art Newspaper→

Show of artist whose work “undermines old idea of Surrealism being about the objectification of women” opens in Madrid before travelling to London.

In 1942, Dorothea Tanning painted the self-portrait that would catapult her into the Surrealist movement. Birthday shows her in fantastical costume with a winged creature at her feet, the gatekeeper to an infinite recession of open doors. The canvas was named in her New York studio by the émigré German Surrealist Max Ernst, who was scouting for female artists to participate in an exhibition at the gallery of Peggy Guggenheim, his then-wife. Within weeks, Ernst had moved in, and he and Tanning married four years later. (Guggenheim later quipped that she should have restricted the show, titled 31 Women, to 30 artists.) > Read More

Tanning’s self-portrait Birthday (1942) will be the first work visitors see in the exhibitionPhiladelphia Museum of Art, 125th Anniversary Acquisition. Purchased with funds contributed by C. K. Williams, II, 1999-50-1 © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Mystery of Art's Most Scandalous Picture Revealed | Independent→

One of the greatest mysteries in art history appears to have been solved.

The identity of the model who posed for the most scandalous painting of the 19th century, Gustave Courbet's "L'Origine du Monde" (The Origin of the World), has finally been revealed.

Experts say they are "99 percent sure" the painting's notoriously naked nether regions belong to the Parisian ballet dancer Constance Queniaux. > Read More

Erotic Auction | Sothebys→

Sotheby’s has been uniting collectors with world-class works of art since 1744. Sotheby’s became the first international auction house when it expanded from London to New York (1955), the first to conduct sales in Hong Kong (1973), India (1992) and France (2001), and the first international fine art auction house in China (2012). Today, Sotheby’s presents auctions in ten different salesrooms, including New York, London, Hong Kong and Paris, and Sotheby’s Bid Now programme allows visitors to view all auctions live online and place bids from anywhere in the world.  

From antiquities to contemporary art, this year's erotic art available online is exceptional.

Kinsey Institute | University of Indiana→

On April 8, 1947, Dr. Alfred Kinsey and his research team incorporated as the Institute for Sex Research. ISR had two primary goals: to continue the team's research on human sexual behavior; and to administer research resources, including research materials, a library, case histories, and other related materials. 

In 1981, 25 years after Dr. Kinsey's death, the Institute for Sex Research was renamed The Kinsey Institute for Sex Research.

The Kinsey Institute Collections encompass print materials, film and video, fine art, artifacts, photography, and archives. The Institute has collected publications, objects, art, and data from six continents. Its holding span more than 2,000 years of human history, and run the gamut of technologies—from ink on paper, to microforms and CD-ROMs.

Stanhope Collection,The Kinsey Institute for Research in Gender, Sex and Reproduction

Erotic Passion & Desire | Sotheby's→

Bidders were left hot under the collar in London this week as Sotheby’s inaugural Erotic sale brought a total of £5,297,000, exceeding the combined pre-sale estimate of £3.1–4.6 million. Featuring over 100 lots of fine art, photography, sculpture and design, the auction saw almost half of the works sold achieve prices above the high estimate.The sale was led by two sculptural masterpieces - Jacques Loysel’s La Grande Névrose and a rare surviving work by Sarah Bernhardt, both of which established auction records.

AUCTION DETAILS

Across the centuries, art has always been intrinsically linked to expressions of passion and sensuality. ‘Erotic: Passion & Desire’ will encompass representations of love and sex from antiquity to the present day, exploring themes from the beauty of desire to representations of the nude, to the carnal act itself, stripped of metaphor. Featuring over 100 extraordinary works comprising 19th-century furniture, design, fine art, books, prints, photography and contemporary sculpture, the exhibition will open at Sotheby’s New Bond Street Galleries on 11 February 2017 ahead of the auction on 16 February 2017.

WARNING Please be advised that this sale includes images of nudity and images of a sexual nature which some viewers may consider indecent. 

Transgender Archives | University of Victoria→

The Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria is committed to the preservation of the history of pioneering activists, community leaders, and researchers who have contributed to the betterment of trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit people.

Since 2007, they have been actively acquiring documents, rare publications, and memorabilia of persons and organizations associated with activism by and for trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit people.

They began with the generous donation of the Rikki Swin Institute collection. The Transgender Archives have been enhanced by other significant donations including the personal papers of Reed Erickson, the entire University of Ulster Trans-Gender Archive collection, and the records of Zenith Foundation of Vancouver Canada, among many others.

Their records span over 530 linear feet (or 1.5 football fields long), go back over 120 years, and are in 13 languages from 20 countries on five continents. Their collections comprise the largest trans archives in the world.  They are accessible to everyone, free of charge.

Virginia Prince, circa 1954. Virginia Prince was one of the earliest transgender activists.

Japanese Erotic Art | Creators-Vice→

Asia Week in New York means highly suggestive Japanese handscrolls are selling like hotcakes.

In the prestige air of an auction house floor room, a steamy encounter between an older man and his sexy male concubine may be the last thing you’d expect to find (depending on the auction house). Yet, for an estimated price of $35,000 to $45,000, a rare look into Japanese homoeroticism could be yours at the Bonhams’ sale taking place during New York’s Asia Week.

Erotic Art | Christie's →

Christie's New York put hundreds of ancient erotic objects ranging from the 5th century B-C to the 4th century A-D on the auction block by the Haddad family.

But to participate in one of the sexiest auctions of the year, you'd have had to dig deep-- these works of art are worth up to 35-thousand U-S dollars. It's not your usual high-brow auction of famous paintings or expensive jewellery. In fact, the subject of Christie's auctions has never been so down to earth.

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Sex Therapist, is featured in this video.  Love her!  

Erotic Photography Collection | Forbes→

The erotic photographer Araki Nobuyoshi is so famous in Tokyo that strangers accost him on the street to have him shoot them in the nude. So he avoids the daylight and spends his nights at a cramped bar he owns in the city's red-light district, surrounded by nubile female models. Four years ago one of his foremost collectors, the Houston investment manager Don Sanders, paid him a visit. "Araki spoke somewhere between zero and no English," Sanders recalls, but that didn't make any difference. Sanders pulled out his camera and they both started taking pictures together, communicating perfectly through the shared language of photography.

Before making his fortune in securities, Sanders planned to be a photographer, attending Sam Houston State College on a $300-a-year photography scholarship supplemented with the cash he earned shooting weddings. "Then I got to thinking that I didn't want to work on weekends, so I switched to business," he says. But he remained enamored of photography, especially female nudes, and in 2002 he finally made his first serious purchase--of four Helmut Newton prints.

He swiftly made up for lost time, amassing more than 10,000 pictures by nearly 150 photographers over the next dozen years. Highlights of his $7 million collection include fine art nudes by Richard Avedon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Lucien Clergue, Jock Sturges and David Levinthal, as well as thousands of prints acquired from the Playboy archive. "The sheer dogged pursuit-- I've never seen anything like it," says Christie's photography specialist Laura Paterson, who is organizing a series of live and online sales of his collection beginning in September. "Don has a voracious appetite for the female form. It has to be one of the largest collections of nudes in private hands anywhere."

Sanders collects in depth, often amassing every image from a photo shoot, including those the photographer didn't select. "With Helmut Newton, I have photographs that you'd recognize from magazines or books," he says, "but I'll also have eight or ten where the position of the leg or head is different." In addition, he's chased down related ephemera. For instance, in the case of Newton's epic "Bergstrom Over Paris" (1976), he has not only the 44-by-64-inch aluminum-mounted print--estimated at $200,000 to $300,000--but also the same image, much reduced, in the original pictorial spread for Newton's book SUMO. And for the photographer's 1980 Big Nudes series--with a presale estimate of between $150,000 and $250,000--Sanders also has test shots and a letter written to him by Newton explaining his inspiration. (The series was originally titled The Terrorists and modeled on mugshots of the Baader-Meinhof Gang.)

After a dozen years of relentless accumulation, Sanders says he's selling the beloved collection because "I'd much rather orchestrate its sale while I'm alive." He hopes especially to increase the visibility of the lesser-known photographers, many of whom are now close friends. Not that he's parting ways completely. As his crates head to Christie's, he's holding back a small personal stash of 150 prints by Helmut Newton--plus another thousand by his pal Araki.

Exodus Trust | Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality→

The Exodus Trust is nonprofit organization that provided its archives for academic and research purposes to the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. The Institute grew out of research in the 1960s highlighting the general lack of understanding of and formal training in human sexuality. The library and archives are a collection of adult films, academic sexological and erotological resources, and sex therapy training materials.   With over 24 warehouses, the Exodus Trust has one of the largest repositories of erotic ephemera, erotic, film and literature. 

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