The Gay Liberation Monument is part of the
Stonewall National Monument
Stonewall National Monument is a U.S. national monument in the West Village neighborhood of Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The designated area includes the Stonewall Inn, the Christopher Park, and nearby streets including ...
, which commemorates the
Stonewall uprising of 1969. Created in 1980, the ''Gay Liberation'' sculpture by American artist
George Segal was the first piece of public art dedicated to
gay rights
Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality.
Notably, , 3 ...
and solidarity for
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is a ...
individuals, while simultaneously commemorating the ongoing struggles of the community.
[Summers, Claude J. “George Segal's Gay Liberation.” GLBTQ: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, & Queer Culture. GLBTQ, Inc., 2003.] The monument was dedicated on June 23, 1992, as part of the dedication of the Stonewall National Monument as a whole.
It is located directly across from the
Stonewall Inn
The Stonewall Inn, often shortened to Stonewall, is a gay bar and recreational tavern in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City, and the site of the Stonewall riots of 1969, which is widely considered to be the s ...
, at the northern end of
Christopher Park, along
Christopher Street
Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue.
It is most notable for the Stonewall Inn, which is located on Christopher St ...
in the
West Village
The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City.
The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, 14th Street (Manhattan ...
section of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
,
New York.
The sculpture depicts two pairs of life-like, life-size, affectionate couples made of bronze and painted white. One couple (two men) are standing, and the other (two women) are seated. It was originally commissioned in 1979 (the 10th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising) by the Mildred Andrews Fund, a Cleveland-based foundation that supports public art displays. The commission specified that the work must be installed on public land and that it "had to be loving and caring, and show the affection that is the hallmark of gay people. ... And it had to have equal representation of men and women".
Background of the Stonewall Riots, the inspiration for ''Gay Liberation''
The Stonewall Riots in
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
in June 1969 are widely remembered and commemorated as a watershed event in the movement for
Gay liberation
The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.Hoffman, 2007, pp.xi-xiii ...
, and the later
LGBT movements
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...
in New York City and worldwide. In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, police forces raided the Stonewall Inn, located on
Christopher Street
Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue.
It is most notable for the Stonewall Inn, which is located on Christopher St ...
in New York City.
[Stein, Marc. The Stonewall Riots: a Documentary History. New York University Press, 2019.] This was a common occurrence during an era when it was still illegal to serve liquor to out lesbian and gay people, and payoffs to the police and organized crime were a routine part of running a
gay bar
A gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) clientele; the term ''gay'' is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBT communities.
Gay bars once served as ...
.
A number of patrons were harassed by police. This was also common, but this time patrons fought back. An agitated crowd of patrons, gay street kids from the nearby park, and officers alike began to congregate on the nearby sidewalks. Patrons and street kids were shouting at the police and physically fighting back as the police tried to arrest them. A number of individuals in the crowd threw coins at the police, who wound up barricading themselves inside the bar. At some point the bar was set on fire. Over the rest of the night and into the next morning, then again every night for the following week, thousands of people marched in the streets, alternately confronting and fleeing from the cops.
Out of this rebellion, several new activist groups such as the
Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots. Similar organizations also formed in the UK and Canada. The GLF provided a ...
, the
Gay Activists Alliance
The Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) was founded in New York City on December 21, 1969, almost six months after the Stonewall riots, by dissident members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). In contrast to the Liberation Front, the Activists Alliance ...
, and
Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries
Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) was a gay, gender non-conforming and transvestite street activist organization founded in 1970 by Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, subculturally-famous New York City drag queens of color.Fei ...
were formed.
History of Segal's ''Gay Liberation''
Original Plans for ''Gay Liberation''
The original plan for Segal's commission (which was introduced on the tenth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots) was to create two separate castings of ''Gay Liberation'' and to place one of them in Christopher Park in Greenwich Village, New York City, and to place the other casting in Los Angeles. Although many legislators and city organizations endorsed its commission in Greenwich Village, many local residents opposed the plans for the monument's installation. Ultimately, New York City failed to allocate the funding necessary to complete the project. The casting that had been created for placement in Los Angeles also was not ultimately displayed because the local governing body did not approve of the work, so the project was made to be fulfilled and displayed on the campus of Stanford University in San Francisco, California, in 1984.
''Gay Liberation'' at Stanford University
Shortly after the monument was erected at Stanford, it was brutally vandalized; the culprit(s) physically cut and jabbed into the figures' faces and bodies. It is estimated that the perpetrator(s) imposed $50,000 worth of damage to the monument. Accordingly, the monument was removed from public display.
This act of vandalism was distressing to the local LGBT community, both at the university and in the surrounding neighborhood, because the location of San Francisco itself had a large and active LGBT community at the time. The fact that this attack ensued on a university campus served as a grim reminder of the lack of safety afforded to LGBT individuals in general.
The monument was repaired and then remained in storage for over a year before being re-installed on the campus of Stanford. Approximately a year after it was displayed for the second time, it was brutally vandalized again; the perpetrators painted derogatory words onto the statues.
''Gay Liberation'' was vandalized again in the year 1994, wherein some football players on Stanford's team splattered the monument with paint and wedged a bench in between the figures of the monument. LGBT students at Stanford openly protested against the fact that this act could not be legally deemed a hate crime, as California's definition of a hate crime consists of the violation of an individual's (rather than an institution's) natural/civil liberties.
A Brief Installation in Madison, Wisconsin
The other casting of Segal's ''Gay Liberation'' was initially placed in Orton Park in Madison, Wisconsin, where it remained from 1986 until 1991. While in Orton Park, the monument was vandalized on at least one occasion, though it was also loved and appreciated by many residents, who would apparently put scarves and hats on the sculpted figures during the winter months.
''Gay Liberation'' in New York City
In the year 1992, New York City agreed to display Segal's ''Gay Liberation'' in Christopher Park, and it was removed from Madison, Wisconsin and placed in Christopher Park. During the dedication ceremony the following year, Segal apparently was surprised that there were no "religious protesters", as there had initially been considerable controversy over the commission of the monument by Catholic residents of New York City.
Despite the uneventful ceremony, there was still controversial discourse surrounding the monument when it was installed in New York City. In 2015, two anonymous people who self-described as, "queer, gender-nonconforming women" claimed credit for vandalizing the statues by painting their faces and hands black and dressing them with cheap wigs, bras, and scarves to protest what they called the statues' "whitewashing" of the history of Stonewall.
Criticisms
The monument has been subject to criticism from those who say it inadequately represents the diversity of the activists who participated in the
Stonewall uprising.
[Stageman, Sam. “Whitewashing of the Stonewall Riots.” Dissertation, Digital Commons at Western Oregon University, 2017.] Some of the prominent participants in the
Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of Ju ...
, such as
Stormé DeLarverie
Stormé DeLarverie (December 24, 1920 – May 24, 2014) was an American woman known as the butch lesbian whose scuffle with police was, according to Stormé and many eyewitnesses, the spark that ignited the Stonewall uprising, spurring the cro ...
and
Marsha P. Johnson
Marsha P. Johnson (August 24, 1945 – July 6, 1992) also known as Malcolm Michaels Jr., was an American gay liberation''I've been involved in gay liberation ever since it first started in 1969'', 15:20 into the interview, Johnson is quoted as ...
were both
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
and
gender-nonconforming
Gender variance or gender nonconformity is behavior or gender expression by an individual that does not match masculine or feminine gender norms. A gender-nonconforming person may be variant in their gender identity, being transgender or non-bina ...
. Delarverie was a well-known
butch dyke, known for performing in popular drag revues and appearing with celebrated entertainers in
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...
. Johnson, who identified as a transvestite and "
street queen",
[ Feinberg, Leslie (September 24, 2006)]
Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.
''Workers World Party
The Workers World Party (WWP) is a revolutionary Marxist–Leninist communist party founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Marcy and his followers split from the SWP in 1958 over a series of long-sta ...
''. "Sylvia Rivera and Marsha "Pay It No Mind" Johnson... Both were self-identified drag queens." modeled for Andy Warhol and performed with the drag troupes,
Hot Peaches and the
Angels of Light
Angels of Light were an American folk band that was formed circa 1998 by singer-songwriter and musician Michael Gira after he disbanded Swans, the group he had founded in 1982. The band has marked a distinctly different style for Gira since he ...
.
[ ][NYC's Hot Peaches]
website. Accessed January 23, 2016.[ – Randolfe Wicker. Published on October 5, 2015. Accessed November 15, 2017. Note: Slideshow includes Warhol polaroids.] While not as well-known, Zazu Nova, who has at times been mistaken for Johnson, was a young, Black and gender-nonconforming participant who has been cited by a number of witnesses as one of "three individuals known to have been in the vanguard" of the pushback against police once the rioting peaked late that night (Johnson and Jackie Hormona being the other two named).
Some have criticized the monument's status as a widely-recognized beacon of queer freedom. Deirdre Conlon, citing the theories of French Marxist
Henri Lefebvre
Henri Lefebvre ( , ; 16 June 1901 – 29 June 1991) was a French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of so ...
(1901–1991), argues that representations of space are profoundly influenced by societal systems and institutions, and that representations of space can and should be fluid and open to modification.
[Conlon, Deirdre. “Productive Bodies, Performative Spaces: Everyday Life in Christopher Park.” Sexualities 7, no. 4 (November 2004): 462–79.] Lefebvre argued that productions of space have been "colonized" by concrete and stagnant representations that "impose an image" and thereby establish and regulate the commemoration and memorialization of a historical moment or phenomenon.
Genevieve Flavelle, writing in ''C Magazine'', questioned whether the quiet, peaceful ''Gay Liberation'' monument adequately pays homage to the revolutionary and tumultuous history of the Stonewall Riots, writing "why does the ''Gay Liberation'' monument (1980), a George Segal commission for the 10th anniversary of the Riots, depict four figures quietly socializing in Christopher Park instead of scores of drag queens throwing high heels and ripping parking meters out of the ground?"
An ongoing movement
Chris E. Vargas, the executive director of the Museum of Transgender Hirstory and Art (MOTHA), suggests it is important to narrate the Stonewall Riots as part of an active, ongoing process of LGBTQ liberation. Vargas believes Segal's ''Gay Liberation'' may not adequately represent the anti-establishment spirit of the Stonewall Riots, and questions the premise of memorializing the Stonewall Riots in a singular, static monument as this may falsely suggest that the movement is "safely placed in the past, and all the concerns of the people involved in the riots are resolved in a clean and tidy way."
He suggests oral history can offer an alternative method of commemorating Stonewall,
noting that within a demographic that has been historically misrepresented and heavily stereotyped, oral histories can honor a collective historical narrative from which LGBTQIA+ individuals have been historically excluded. Because many gay men were lost to the
AIDS Crisis
The AIDS epidemic, caused by HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), found its way to the United States between the 1970s and 1980s, but was first noticed after doctors discovered clusters of Kaposi's sarcoma and pneumocystis pneumonia in homosexual ...
, and members of the community have been lost to suicide or were forced to live in the closet in order to preserve their safety, there has also been difficulty using oral histories to memorialize queer and trans experiences.
Segal's description of relationships in ''Gay Liberation''
![Gay Liberation Monument Christopher Park 19074 (8419340357)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Gay_Liberation_Monument_Christopher_Park_19074_%288419340357%29.jpg)
The subjects of Segal's monument are depicted with physical elements that serve to shed light upon the complexity of their relationships; both couples are exhibited locking eyes, which may be interpreted as symbolizing commitment and communion, which are aspects of same-sex relationships that are unduly excluded from their depictions in popular culture and media. Segal has apparently remarked that his sculpture tends to concentrate "...on tenderness, gentleness and sensitivity as expressed in gesture", which allows the viewer to appreciate the intimacy of the partners' relationships.
Setting in Christopher Park
![Christopher Park (1)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Christopher_Park_%281%29.JPG)
Christopher Park is directly across from the Stonewall Inn, and has been at the center of the
Gay liberation
The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.Hoffman, 2007, pp.xi-xiii ...
movement of New York City since before the Stonewall Riots of 1969, as it was already a gathering place for homeless gay street kids who slept there.
In 1999, the Stonewall bar and the surrounding neighborhood streets, including Christopher Park, were placed on the New York State Register of Historic Places and added to the National Register.
Choice of Segal as artist
When Segal was first approached about the possibility of commissioning ''Gay Liberation'', he was uncertain about accepting the undertaking, and his initial reaction was that the sculpture should be done by a gay artist. He eventually decided that he would accept the project in the name of empathy and respect to the community, saying, "I'm extremely sympathetic to the problems that gay people have. They're human beings first. I couldn't refuse to do it."
Nonetheless, some have argued that Segal should not have taken the job. Responding to this criticism, Segal jokingly acknowledged himself as "an unregenerate heterosexual", but said that his heterosexuality "did not prevent him from having an insight into the natures of his gay friends."
See also
*
Gay liberation
The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.Hoffman, 2007, pp.xi-xiii ...
*
List of LGBT monuments and memorials
Following is a list of LGBT monuments and memorials:
Americas Brazil
* My Heart Beats Like Yours, Sculpture in Praça da República, 2018, São Paulo
Canada
* Cherry Trees at Devonian Harbour Park; planted in 1985 and solemnized in 2019 wi ...
References
External links
*
{{Portal bar, California, LGBT, New York City, Visual arts
1980 sculptures
Bronze sculptures in Manhattan
Culture of Manhattan
LGBT arts
LGBT culture in California
Historiography of LGBT in New York City
LGBT monuments and memorials in the United States
Monuments and memorials in California
Monuments and memorials in Manhattan
Outdoor sculptures in California
Outdoor sculptures in Manhattan
Sculptures of men in New York City
Sculptures of women in New York City
Stanford University buildings and structures
Statues in California
Statues in New York City
Stonewall National Monument
Vandalized works of art in New York (state)