Kathy Zarur, a curator and professor at the California College of the Arts, who has also worked for the Sharjah Art Foundation in the United Arab Emirates, said she did not know of any other Arab art-focused institution holding an exhibition with L.G.B.T. Across the Arab world, openly gay, lesbian and transgender people face persecution. Men and women, they said, have engaged in same-sex eroticism throughout the Muslim world, as evidenced by Arabic poetry. Among the first institutions to explore this theme were the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art and the New Museum, both in New York. Sheena Wagstaff, head of the department of modern and contemporary art at the Met, said she prefers the work speaks for itself.

Source: New York Times January 12, 2018 09:56 UTC