The Queer Urgency of ‘a field of bloom and hum’

In Melancholia and Moralism: Essays on AIDS and Queer Politics (2002), art historian Douglas Crimp writes that ‘AIDS activism does not speak of representation or make representations with a single voice’. Crimp’s thoughts on the politics of representation were front of mind as I navigated ‘a field of bloom and hum’ at the Tang Teaching Museum in Saratoga Springs. From paintings, prints and photographs to textiles, sculptures and performance documentation, the exhibition assembles works from the early 20th century to the present by more than 140 artists, offering expansive portrayals of the rich and diverse communities of queer culture.

The current US administration understands the power of representation, as evidenced by its erasure of information on LGBTQ+ communities from public resources. While such targeting of civil rights is certainly not new, the introductory text to ‘a field of bloom and hum’ reminds viewers that the American Civil Liberties Union identified 533 anti-LGBTQ+ bills proposed by US Congress members in 2024. (In 2025, that number has increased to 575.)

The epicentre of this sweeping show of queer histories is Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1973–86), which acted as a kind of centrifugal force within the LGBTQ+ community in the US for its documentation of the emerging AIDS crisis. Installed along perimeter walls, 90 photographs – many of which were shot in New York – depict friends and lovers. The images of chosen family capture communal experiences of people united by a desire to live and love differently.

Rather than relying on chronological or thematic narratives, the exhibition is atmospheric, encouraging visitors to sort through overlapping aesthetic correspondences. Goldin’s photographs hang near Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s photogravures from his ‘Untitled (Sand)’ (1993–94) portfolio, which show only the indexical marks left in the sand by people’s bodies. His works resonate with Oliver Herring’s Queensize Bed with Coat (1993–94) – a sculpture of a mattress impressed with the contours of an absent person created to serve as a memorial to the performance artist Ethyl Eichelberger – and Don Herron’s photographs of artists and actors in their bathtubs (‘Tub Shots’, 1978–93). Alice O’Malley’s silver gelatin portraits of New York’s queer arts communities in the early 2000s look across to photographs from the 1930s to '50s by PaJaMa, the polyamorous collaborative of artists Paul Cadmus, Jared French and Margaret Hoening French.

Pick a thread, any thread, in this universe of queer lives and genealogies. On the show’s second floor, a salon-style hang of 140 works spanning nearly 20 linear metres traverses an intergenerational network of queer voices – from the playful figurations of Nicole Eisenman (École d’Abjéct [School of the Abject], 2006) to the shimmering canvases of Devan Shimoyama (Self Portrait as Left Eye, 2022), from Marsden Hartley to Jess T. Dugan, the list goes on.

People, places and faces. Many still with us; many lost to the ravages of the AIDS crisis. That may well be the takeaway from this rallying cry of a show: the reality of our mortality. We stand among those we love and the communities we call family for such a short time. Charged with a palpable sense of melancholy and urgency, this show speaks to the power of the self-authored archive. And, above all, to the look of love. We are here: visually present, speaking loudly, a multiplicity of voices. Crimp argued that cultural representation – the images, narratives and symbols circulating in art and media – is never neutral but embedded with ethical and political judgements. ‘a field of bloom and hum’ makes a compelling case for the political efficacy of representation, suggesting that now is the time for resistance and activism. It is time again to act up.

‘a field of bloom and hum’ is on view at Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, until 20 July

^{Main image: ‘a field of bloom and hum’, 2025, exhibition view. Courtesy: Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College; photograph: Mindy McDaniel}