Like tracer bullets fired into the dark, the great American photographer George Platt Lynes (1907–1955) produced scores of images that traced the trajectory of the gaze. His photographs seem to materialize sight as a social actor: queers looking at each other, non-queers looking at queers, and most strikingly, queers looking at themselves as they come to terms with their own desires. Made in a period in which the gaze was freighted with more meaning and possibility than in our more open era, Lynes’s work is among the earliest to register not just the weight of social stigma, but a self-conscious resistance to stigma as well.
George Platt Lynes's Probing Stare
Self-Portrait (detail), 1940s, George Platt Lynes. Gelatin silver print, 9 3/16 x 7 3/8 in. LACMA, AC1992.197.84. The Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection
About
Speaker
Jonathan D. Katz
Art historian, curator, and queer activist
Jonathan D. Katz is professor of practice in Art History and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Katz is a pioneering figure in the development of queer art history, as author of a number of books and articles, and curator of many exhibitions, including the first queer exhibition at the Smithsonian, which won multiple awards. The first full-time American academic to be tenured in Queer Studies, Katz also founded Yale University’s queer studies program, founded the Queer Caucus for Art, co-founded Queer Nation and the GLBT Town Meeting, which won queer anti-discrimination statutes in Chicago, and is president emeritus of the Leslie Lohman Museum. Katz is curator of The First Homosexuals at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago in summer 2025, and author/editor of About Face: Stonewall, Revolt, and New Queer Art (Monacelli, 2024).
Know Before You Go
Duration
Approximately 1 hour
Planning your arrival
Please bring your tickets with you and have them open on your mobile device or printed. Your event ticket is also your entry to the Getty Center and will be checked upon arrival as you go through security before taking the tram or walking up the hill.
Your ticket will also be checked at the event entrance.
Note that during busy times of year and weekends, we recommend planning your visit to allow for at least 30 minutes to park, go through security, and make your way up to the event.
Event Check-In
Check-in begins 90 minutes before program start time at the Harold M. Williams Auditorium.
Doors open 30 minutes before program start time.
Seating
Unless otherwise noted, all seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. We recommend arriving early to guarantee a seat. Unclaimed tickets may be released 15 minutes prior to the event.
Accessibility
Wheelchairs are available for free rental on a first-come, first-served basis at the Lower Tram Station above the parking structure and at the Coat Check Room in the Museum Entrance Hall.
Seating for wheelchair users and their party is available at the back of the auditorium, as well as at the front of the space. If you'd like to sit in the front, please let a Visitor Services associate know when you check in and they can escort you to these seats.
Assisted listening devices are available for this event. Please request one from our Visitor Services associates when you check in.
For more information on how we can support your visit to the Getty Center, learn about accessibility at Getty.
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