Full of Pleasure: The Beginnings of New Queer Cinema

Coined by film scholar B. Ruby Rich in a 1992 piece for The Village Voice, the concept of New Queer Cinema is less a conscious effort by a group of artists with an aesthetic synchronicity and more a watershed moment in independent cinema during which queer identities both on screen and behind the camera were reconfiguring established genres to author their own cinematic languages. Programmed by major festivals such as New Directors/New Films and Sundance, this new genre was defined by the energetic works of then-emerging filmmakers such as Gregg Araki, Cheryl Dunye, Todd Haynes, and Rose Troche, and established auteurs Derek Jarman, Isaac Julien, and Gus Van Sant, all of whom released feature films in the 1990s featuring queer subjects and themes, and were platformed in Rich’s landmark essay.

To complement the museum’s installation Outside the Mainstream, on view through August 4, 2024, this series offers a dynamic survey of the pioneering works that jumpstarted a liberating moment of radical self-expression for LGBTQIA+ artists which reverberates today.