The NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale and the Stonewall National Museum and Archives announced the commencement of a formal partnership on June 9. 

The collaboration follows years of informal affiliation between the two South Florida cultural organizations and will focus on bringing “further engagement and awareness to the LGBTQIA+ community,” according to a press release.

“We look forward to sharing [with the NSU Art Museum] ideas and discussions during the course of our partnership, and utilizing the great power of art to bridge gaps,” said Robert Kesten, executive director of Stonewall National Museum and Archives.

Final plans as to how, exactly, the collaboration will take shape are yet to be completed, but it is expected that they will be multi-faceted and equally reliant on the specialties of both organizations.

The NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale has been a staple in the South Florida art scene since its inception in 1958, while the Stonewall National Museum and Archives is one of the “largest gay archives and libraries in the United States,” according to its website.

 “Above all, we really want to create an inviting space for members of the LGBTQ+ community, and for any other group, as well,” said Lisa Quinn, the Lillian S. Wells Education Curator at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale. 

She envisions programming in the form of lectures and workshops acting as supplements to more traditional (visual) art exhibits as the partnership plays out. An exhibit for LGBTQ History month in October is also in the works.

Art for such an event, according to Quinn, could come from any number of prior NSU exhibits — they regularly showcase work from LGTBQ+ artists (such as Andy Warhol) — while Stonewall’s contribution could include multiple elements from its vast library and archives.

Stonewall National Museum and Archives maintains more than 6 million pages of materials documenting “LGBTQIA+ political, cultural and social history,” according to its website. In addition, they maintain artifacts from significant events in LGBTQ history and property once belonging to activists and LGBTQ celebrities.

Stonewall and the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale last partnered in June of 2022 for an exhibit entitled “Travel through Queer History.” It explored “the LGBTQ civil rights movement from the first part of the 20th Century to the present day,” per the art museum’s website.

The new, formal, partnership has no specified end date, according to Kesten. Nor does it preclude growth to include other organizations.

For more information on the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, visit nsuartmuseum.org or call 954-525-5500.
For more information on Stonewall National Museum and Archives visit stonewall-museum.org or call 954-763-8565.