Orlando Museum of Art highlights LGBTQ+ love in new exhibit

Orlando Museum of Art’s new exhibit “Relationships: A Love for Collecting.” (Photo by Aidan Carmody)

ORLANDO | The Orlando Museum of Art is honoring the legacy of the late Joseph Lovett with “Relationships: A Love for Collecting II,” a new exhibition featuring donations from his personal collection with Dr. James Cottrell.

The collection consists of various works that the partners and art lovers collected during their lives together to support the LGBTQ+ community during the AIDS crisis in New York City. Lovett died this past July, and this exhibition is meant to honor his life’s work as an art collector and philanthropist.

They both made it their passion to connect with the community through art and have since given away their entire collection to be displayed at museums. OMA has received over 300 pieces of this collection which they plan to continually rotate and showcase.

“The couple actually lived in New York in the 1980s, so they had a lot of friends who were from the LGBTQ+ community, and they were deeply affected having lost friends and loved ones,” shares Coralie Claeysen-Gleyzon, curator of the exhibit. “The relationships, those friendships, those bonds that were created, with the artists, you can actually see it on the walls as part of the exhibition.”

The collection features variations of pieces including paintings, prints, photography and sculpture. The art style showcased in the exhibit incorporates abstraction, representation and conceptual art.

“It was really instrumental for them to actually support living artists, many of whom were from the LGBTQ+ community including purchasing works at auctions that would help support finding a cure during the AIDS epidemic crisis and supporting artists from that community as well,” Claeysen-Gleyzon remarks.

The exhibit features artists from around the world such as Czech-American artist Barton Lidice Beneš, who did extensive work creating powerful pieces relating to AIDS/HIV before he passed away due to HIV+ related complications in 2012.

Other artists showcased in the exhibit include Damien Deroubaix, Damian Aquiles, Tom McGrath, Jorges Queiroz, Noël Dolla, Edouard Prulhière, Suzanne McClelland, Deborah Kass, Malcolm Morley and Adam Fuss.

“It is really showcasing the relationship that the collectors had with these artists and then by extension, the museum sharing the act of generously giving their collection to the public shows the act of generosity they had toward the artists has expanded beyond that,” Claeysen-Gleyzon says.

The exhibit is currently ongoing and will be running through the holiday season and new year. View photos below.

For more information on Orlando Museum of Art, visit OMArt.org.

Photos by Aidan Carmody.