Deborah Kass, “Deb,” 2012. Screenprints, edition of 60, 24 x 24 inches each.
Some of the city’s most colorful characters flocked to The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center last night to celebrate the completion of a $9.2 million renovation project. A sparkling rainbow ribbon was cut by Edie Windsor, who famously caused the Supreme Court to change its exclusively heterosexual interpretation of marriage through a civil rights case that is now a historical milestone for the LGBT community. Cheers resounded as it fell to the floor.
The former school building, on West 13th Street, was filled with artwork by the likes of Deborah Kass, Leon Golub and George Whitman — part of an exhibit, “Once Upon A Time And Now,” that pays tribute to the creative space that the Center provided for the dynamic artists that frequented it 25 years ago. Contemporary pieces were interspersed with classics from a 1989 show marking the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, serving as testimony to the cultural legacy that the center has had.
The show’s centerpiece, “Once Upon a Time,” is a bombardment of surreal phallic cartoon imagery, painted by Keith Haring in 1989 in what once was one of the center’s bathrooms. Last night, its celebratory tone matched the atmosphere that carried itself throughout the center.
Glennda Testone, the executive director of the center, thanked a number of congressmen and senators for their official support and funding, expressing that “30 years ago we didn’t even have a building.” A representative for Mayor de Blasio also presented the audience with a Proclamation endorsing the center and the work it has done for the gay community.
Testone told the packed crowd that her goal was for the center — which offers an array of arts programming as well as recovery, wellness, and family support services — to feel like home for anyone who walked through its doors, no matter what situation they found themselves in. Her emphatic final words resounded throughout the room: “LGBT matters, our community matters!”
Correcton: The original version of this post was revised because, due to an editing error, it misidentified the Deborah Kass print as an Andy Warhol.