Last spring, one of my students blogged about the groundbreaking exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery. At the time, I was following with great interest the controversy that surrounded Hide/Seek when Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough decided to pull David Wojnarowicz’s video “A Fire in My Belly” from the exhibition. (For more on the controversy, follow this link.) At the time, however, I wasn’t able to travel to DC to view it for myself. Happily, the Brooklyn Museum has reconstituted the exhibition (with some minor changes), so I took the opportunity during the semester break to visit it. Although I won’t offer a full review here, I’m pleased to report that it was worth the wait. I’d encourage all who are in the NYC area to take the opportunity to see what all the fuss was about before the exhibition closes on February 12.
