Exhibition Spaces

European LGBT Museums and Queer Exhibition Spaces

Mimosa House in London, UK, is an independent, non-profit gallery space in the heart of Mayfair curated by Daria Khan. Dedicated to artistic experimentation and collaboration, they support dialogue between intergenerational women and queer artists. Embracing inclusivity and sensitivity, Mimosa House is a safe and empowering space which focuses on the fluidity of identity and recognises the need for change.

Museum of Impossible Forms, M{if} in Helsinki, Finland, was founded in spring 2017 as an antiracist and queer-feminist project, a heterogeneous space developing experimental and migrant forms of expression, a platform for experiences and a laboratory for critical thought. The Museum of Impossible Forms opens up a broad horizon though its political character, its accessibility and openness, its multilingual library, an ongoing archive, and through its projects and events.

Schwules Museum*, Berlin, Germany. The Schwules Museum* has, since its founding in 1985, grown into one of the world’s largest and most significant institutions for archiving, researching and communicating the history and culture of GLBTIQ communities. Changing exhibitions and events take diverse approaches to lesbian, gay, trans*, bisexual and queer biographies, themes and concepts in history, art and culture.

The Homografiska Museet (Homographic Museum) in Sweden is a queer museum founded by Swedish queer feminist artist Funny Livsdotter. It is located in Fengersfors, Dalsland, Sweden. The Museum/ art project is a small trailer that houses a new exhibition each summer. The art project website features a digital collection of queer artworks.

The Unstraight Museum, Sweden. A group of people connected to museums either by working in, or by visiting, or just by loving museums and collections, decided in 2007 to do something about the fact that most museums neglect to tell the stories of Unstraight people, and started to form a new museum focused on collective collecting: The Unstraight Museum. The collection of the Unstraight Museum is an online collection of images and stories. This museum does not collect physical artifacts.

Queer Britain, UK’s first national LGBTQ+ museum, a place as exciting as the people, stories and ideas it explores and celebrates. The Museum which opened in spring 2022 is situated in London.

QUEERCIRCLE, London UK, is a new LGBTQ+ led charity working at the intersection of art health and social action. Having opened our new home in June 2022, QUEERCIRCLE seeks to develop an ecology of artists, curators, writers, thinkers, community organisers, grassroots organisations and charities who collectively work together to reimagine the role cultural spaces play in society. Our exhibition commissions, archive exhibitions, participatory residencies, learning and workplace opportunities, and health and wellbeing programmes provide holistic support to LGBTQ+ and local communities.

Museums dedicated to Invididual Queer Women Artist

Alice Austen
The Alice Austen House is a museum about American photographer Alice Austen (1866-1952) on Staten Island, NY, USA, is a nationally designated site of LGBTQ history. The museum educates and inspires the public through the interpretation of the photographs, life and historic home of pioneering American photographer, Alice Austen who shared her home with Gertrude Tate.

Claude Cahun
In the Art Gallery of Jersey Museum you will find works by Claude Cahun, recognised worldwide as one of the leading artists of the Surrealist movement. Jersey Museum cares for one of the largest collections of works by Claude Cahun. The collection comprises photographs, original manuscripts, first editions, books and other personal material, and works by Cahun’s partner Marcel Moore.

Marie Laurencin
The Marie Laurencin Museum opened in 1983 in commemoration of the one-hundredth year since Marie Laurencin’s birth. The museum, which started with some 100 works from the personal collection of museum director Masahiro Takano, has grown over the years and undergone extensive remodeling to become the only art museum in the world dedicated to the work of French artist Marie Laurencin.

Rosa Bonheur
The Musée de l’Atelier de Rosa Bonheur, Thomery, Seine-et-Marne, France.
Rosa Bonheur was one of the first French women artist to gain international reputation as a fine artist. She was naturalist painter, an animal painter.

Tove Jansson
Moomin Museum in Finland is a museum devoted to original works by writer and lesbian artist Tove Jansson. Its unique collections comprise around 2000 works. Tove Jansson (1914 – 2001) Finish author was a successfull author of childrens’ books a visual artist and comics artist. The Helsinki Art Museum (HAM) has opened (January 2016) a exhibition about Tove Jansson which is a part of their permanent collection.

Non-european LGBT Museums and Queer Exhibition Spaces

FAG, Feminist Art Gallery run by Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue in their private home in Toronto, Canada. FAG was discontinued in 2021 when the artist couple moved from their home in Toronto.

The Herstory Gallery in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the 4th floor of Brooklyn Museum presents feminist exhibitions related to The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, on long-term view in the adjacent gallery. The Dinner Party is an iconic feminist work, celebrating the achievements of women throughout history, includes a floor on which appear the names of 999 mythical and historic women, some of which are lesbians. The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art will now and then display works by and tell about the lives of out lesbian and queer feminist artists.

Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York, USA. The Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art is the first dedicated LGBTQ art museum in the world with a mission to exhibit and preserve LGBTQ art, and foster the artists who create it.

Museum of Transgender Hirstory & Art (MOTHA) in San Francisco, USA is dedicated to moving the hirstory and art of transgender people to the center of public life. The museum, founded in 2013, insists on an expansive and unstable definition of transgender, one that is able to encompass all trans and gender non-conformed art and artists.

Queer Thoughts is an art gallery in New York City. The gallery was founded in Chicago in 2012, and relocated to Manhattan in 2015. The directors Sam Lipp and Luis Miguel Bendaña have previously included works by queer women artists in the queer art shows that they curate. The gallery closed in 2023.

SUM, Canada’s queer gallery and presentation space is run by The Queer Arts Festival. SUM opened in 2018 in Vancouver, Canada.

The GLBT Historical Society – Often referred to as San Francisco’s “queer Smithsonian,” the GLBT Historical Society houses one of the world’s largest collections of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender historical materials. The society’s GLBT History Museum is the first full-scale, stand-alone museum of its kind in the United States.

Queer Feminist Performance Space

WOW Café Theatre, New York, began in 1980 as an international women’s theatre festival. It is founded by Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw. Any woman and/or trans person is welcome to get involved in any aspect of making theatre at WOW. WOW has no Artistic Director nor any centralized control over the works that appear, and producers have artistic liberty to produce what they desire. The tradition here is that women and/or transgender people provide the central creative impetus behind a show at WOW.