Beau McCall is inviting people into LGBTQ+ history in an exhibition at the Stonewall National Museum, Archives, & Library. The artist worked on a series of collages containing materials from his “personal archival photos and papers,” documenting the lives and worlds of those lost too soon to the AIDS epidemic.
REWIND: HISTORY ON REPEAT honors the legacies of ten of McCall’s deceased friends. It also celebrates the period when they connected in places like New York and Philadelphia. Together they enjoyed music, fashion, literature, and friendship.
The exhibition is filled with photographic evidence of the places people on the East Coast connected in from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s before college students were demanding respite from conflicting opinions. “We all had safe spaces,” McCall told ESSENCE.
His work uses the personal experience of him and his friends to amplify other stories by using images to emphasize the challenges, joy, and hope present in the past and future of the LGBTQ+ community.
Newspaper clippings, letters to community organizations, party fliers, customized buttons, song lyrics, and more are included in the show. It places stealthy glances across smoke-filled rooms, evenings full of decadent disco dancing, and heartfelt conversations in the proper historical context.
Located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the Stonewall National Museum, Archives, & Library is “one of the largest gay archives and libraries” in the country. It is devoted to promoting “understanding through collecting, preserving and sharing the proud culture of lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender and queer people.” The exhibition was curated by Souleo, who curated Dionne Warwick: Queen of Twitter and Showing Out: Fashion in Harlem.
REWIND: HISTORY ON REPEAT speaks to a time before “going live” was a reasonable response to a personal crisis, before followers began supplementing friends. Together McCall and his friends not only connected over their individual sexualities but over the shared goals and experiences they had as young, ambitious people. They attended concerts, swapped secrets, and shared dreams. In one piece in the exhibition, McCall and his friend Saifuddin Muhammad eagerly await a performance from Patti Labelle.
“Those relationships were very important because they helped mold us,” said McCall. “A lot of personal issues that you go through as a young person, maybe biological family cannot relate to what you’re going to.”
“People actually went out to physically meet each other. You didn’t meet each other online. You didn’t meet each other through a profile. You went out, you socialized, you mingled,” said
McCall. McCall was toting a disposable camera to preserve the memories made by those mingling sessions.
“I always had a disposable camera right now. Everybody has a phone and a camera. Everybody has a computer,” he said.
His collages feature artifacts from gossip-filled nights giggling at bars and in the backroom of adult bookstores. It was a time when the end of a shift signaled the start of a party, and everything seemed possible.
“What my group of friends and I thought [was] that you know? We were going to be young for a short period of time, and then we’re gonna be these men together, and it did not happen. AIDS came into play,” said McCall.
“People were just dying, dying, dying, dying.”
His circle being ravaged by the horrors of AIDs negatively impacted McCall’s work. “These people were my actual friends, so it’s very painful. I went into a depression. I no longer was creating art,” he said.
The community continued to gift society their influence while enduring that pain and the pain of rampant discrimination.
“When I came out, what I noticed is that with fashion, style, music, the gay community gets it first,” said McCall. The fluttering lashes, harsh contours, and laid lace popular today was first donned in LGBTQ+ spaces.
The exhibition reflects a growing effort to credit the community with the significant contributions they have made to pop culture. Moi Renee, an artist McCall shared a close friendship with, was featured on “Honey” by Beyoncé. Renee’s talent is being amplified on the star’s RENAISSANCE tour.
“That’s a classic. That song’s been around for at least 30 years,” said McCall. McCall wept when his friend received acknowledgment from Queen Bey.
“I literally was in tears because that fool would have lost, he would have lost his mind,” he said. “She gave the song a new life, and then she gave the song…she opened it up to a worldwide audience.”
The RENAISSANCE album is accompanied by spiritual credits that reflect the many inspirations the singer took from LGBTQ+ icons. Many of the visual and sonic trends reflected in those inspirations are reflected in McCall’s work.
“I consider myself a young senior,” said McCall. “I lived through a couple eras, so when this stuff starts to resurface, I’m like, oh, I remember that, I remember that.”
McCall had an eye for the beauty in his surroundings, even as a child, he was collecting inspiration in unexpected places. “I’ve always been attracted to art and beautiful things, whether it’s visual art or wearable art,” he said.
“People don’t realize that you walk through art every day.”
REWIND: HISTORY ON REPEAT is on display at the Stonewall National Museum, Archives, & Library in Fort Lauderdale, FL through September 8, 2023.
