The building that housed Basgo’s—which started its life decades earlier as a Safeway grocery store—was no stranger to gay and lesbian refuge. The Black Cat opened as a gay bar in 1966 with a pool table and a jukebox stocked with Motown hits. On New Year’s Eve of that year, undercover LAPD officers unleashed their batons and arrested 14 people on charges of “lewd or dissolute conduct” (six were convicted and forced to register as sex offenders). The court battle and street protest that ensued were pioneering pre-Stonewall episodes in the struggle for gay and lesbian civil rights.
Celebrate Pride with Getty!
Events, art stories, and more in honor of LGBTQ+ history
Topics
Left: Wrestler Daddy & Boy (detail), 1995, Rick Castro. © Rick Castro. Center: Pelada: Chapter 2 (detail), 2021, Texas Isaiah. © Texas Isaiah. Right: Forest (detail), 2021, Amina Cruz. © Amina Cruz. Images courtesy of each artist
Body Content
Happy Pride Month!
We’re excited to celebrate Pride at the Getty Center in person with Queering the Lens. This event features contemporary photographers who will come together to share their work and perspectives on the relationship between queer identity and art.
RSVP and also enjoy stories of artists and changemakers who are represented in Getty’s collections and whose work has made an impact in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights.
RSVP
On June 7, celebrate three Los Angeles-based photographers—Rick Castro, Amina Cruz, and Texas Isaiah—who create powerful artworks that spotlight and celebrate under-represented LGBTQ+ communities. Join them as they talk about the subcultures and personal relationships they explore in their work. Following the talk, you’re invited to a celebration to kick off LA Pride weekend in the courtyard of the Getty Museum!
Celebrate Love
Look back on a love story for the ages. Writers Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas met as expats in Paris in 1907 and were partners for just shy of 40 years, until Stein’s death in 1946. Stein was a poet and novelist and Toklas published cookbooks that combined recipes with memories of their life together. The couple was friends with the avant-garde writers and artists of the time, and often invited them into their home for food and conversation. A photo by Man Ray captures them in their home.
Explore Gay Semiotics
Street Fashion, Jock, 1977, Hal Fischer. Gelatin silver print, 20 × 16 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2020.2.6. © Hal Fischer
Photographer Hal Fischer created Gay Semiotics, a playful study of the signs and symbols of his gay community, in 1977 and published it as a book the following year. In this series he foregrounds a coded language, primarily based on dress and fashion accessories that gay men have used clandestinely to identify each other for decades, often to display their sexual preferences and interests in kink subcultures. Fischer’s pictures celebrate these various attributes.
Explore a Place of Refuge
Basgo’s Disco, 1990, Ed Ruscha. Negative film reel: Coronado headed west (Image 0151). Part of the Streets of Los Angeles Archive, Getty Research Institute. © Edward Ruscha
