The Getty Center’s first exclusively queer exhibition opens today

A new Get­ty Research Insti­tute exhi­bi­tion, $3 Bill: Evi­dence of Queer Lives, explores the long his­to­ry of LGBTQ+ peo­ple and cul­ture in the USA, from 1900 to the present day.

Curat­ed by Pietro Rigo­lo, it is the Get­ty Center’s first ever exclu­sive­ly queer pre­sen­ta­tion, which opens today, June 10, and runs until Sep­tem­ber 28.

The exhi­bi­tion brings togeth­er paint­ings, ephemera, pho­tog­ra­phy and video to explore the exis­tence and rep­re­sen­ta­tion of queer peo­ple in art and media through­out the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

• Read next: A visu­al trip through 100 years of New York’s LGBTQ+ spaces 

It’s pre­sent­ed in chrono­log­i­cal order, open­ing with the first half of the 20^th cen­tu­ry, before Gay Lib­er­a­tion and at a time when queer­ness was forced to be hid­den from view and underground.

Leg­endary LGBTQ+ artists fea­ture, includ­ing Claude Cahun, Jean Cocteau, Elis­ar con Kuppfer and David Hock­ney, as well as images from impor­tant spaces such as the Harlem drag balls of the 1940s and 1950s.

The sec­ond half focus­es on the explo­sion in LGBTQ+ cre­ativ­i­ty and expres­sion from the 1970s to the present day via the likes of a clay mod­el of the Woman’s Build­ing in Los Ange­les, as well as work from Har­mo­ny Ham­mond, Robert Map­plethor­pe and more.

• Read next: No one cap­tured Green­wich Village’s hey­day like Fred W. McDarrah 

Mary Miller, direc­tor of the Get­ty Research Insti­tute, said: ​“This exhi­bi­tion hon­ours the rich lega­cy and vibrant cre­ativ­i­ty of queer communities.

“It traces the path from ear­ly 20^th-cen­tu­ry pio­neers who chal­lenged norms around sex­u­al­i­ty and gen­der, through the trans­for­ma­tive activism of the gay lib­er­a­tion era and the pro­found impact of the HIV/AIDS cri­sis, to the broad­er, more inclu­sive under­stand­ings of iden­ti­ty we see today,” she continued.

Queer pho­tog­ra­ph­er Rick Cas­tro, whose work fea­tures in the exhi­bi­tion said: ​“I am hap­py to be part of the first exclu­sive­ly queer pre­sen­ta­tion at the Get­ty Center.

“This event is sig­nif­i­cant and his­toric as the Get­ty has com­mit­ted the muse­um to queer art pres­ence dur­ing Pride, 2025. I applaud Getty’s com­mit­ment to the GLBTQ com­mu­ni­ties dur­ing these dark times in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics,” he continued.

“It took all my adult life as an artist to make it to the Get­ty. I will proud­ly take my flowers.”

$3 Bill: Evi­dence of Queer Lives is on view at the Get­ty Cen­ter, Los Ange­les, until Sep­tem­ber 28.

Isaac Muk is Huck’s dig­i­tal edi­tor. Fol­low him on Bluesky.

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