What’s Happening: A major auction of LGBTQ+ art and ephemera offers proof of—and rising prices for—multifaceted queer histories.

The Download: The material evidence of queer existence is, in unprecedented ways, both threatened and valued. For much of the first few decades of 21st-century America, queer culture was not only lucrative, but popular: from the YA novel boom to RuPaul’s Drag Race and musicians like Lil Nas X and Janelle Monáe to blockbuster painters like Salman Toor, queer representation was big business. But the backlash is here. Those YA books are vanishing from school libraries while states are banning drag from public spaces. In online marketplaces, buying and selling queer-themed art is difficult, while physical mainstays like San Francisco’s beloved The Magazine SF have shuttered.

This summer’s “LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History” auction at New York City’s Swann Auction Galleries shows the value of what’s at stake. Its hundreds of lots span centuries, media, nations, and identities. An 1882 Napoléon Sarony albumen print of Oscar Wilde, the kind of keepsake he gave away on his standing-room-only one-man-shows across America, documents not only perhaps the first gay celebrity, but a foundation of celebrity culture itself.

There are beautifully horny and formally brilliant photographs from the late 1930s artistic collective PaJaMa and from George Platt Lynes, from ‘70s and ‘80s heavy hitters like Diane Arbus, Peter Hujar, Robert Mapplethorpe, and David Wojnarowicz, from establishment icons like Herb Ritts and should-be-canon Suzanne Poli and Jimmy DeSana and JEB. Visionary paintings from Sadao Hasegawa and George Quaintance complicate notions—should any shamefully survive today—that queer culture is only about white beefcake. Erotic art has its place too: illustrations from Samuel Steward and Rex and Tom of Finland, and ads for films by Joe Gage and the Colt studio, hardly bother with respectability politics.

“Each medium contributes to the sincere understanding of the arc of queer culture,” says Corey Serrant, Swann’s associate director and specialist. “They connect the creators across a spectrum of industries and art forms that execute the works. When merged, they form a narrative of what it means to experience life as a queer person without taking away from their individual stories.”

Many also emphasize the collective. Mattachine Society ephemera document how the early gay rights movement was both sexual and textual, while a bootleg of the infamous “Purple Pamphlet” shows Florida’s history as a hothouse for hate. Posters from Gran Fury retain their rage at America’s encouragement of the AIDS epidemic; others recruit crowds for the 1993 march on Washington with vibrant minimalism.

Not all items are so boldly noble. A binder of 49 postcards advertising shows by Lady Bunny, Justin Vivian Bond, Murray Hill, and others might not exactly be a bargain, if you remember them freely piled upon the filthy bars of Manhattan in 2007 and after. Those bars fell to gentrification, and rising auction prices might encourage a similar revaluing. But those nights deserve to be remembered, and history isn’t free. “The estimates are rooted in the auction results from the four previous iterations of the sale,” says Serrant, who notes a “rise in interest from private and institutional collectors.” History is written by the winners, after all—in this case, the winners of the auctions.

In Their Own Words: “We’ve seen growth in acquiring and preserving LGBTQ+ history,” Serrant says. “Many people are becoming stewards of queer art and culture, noticing the importance of the narrative and who controls it.”

Surface Says: We’ve got our paddles up.

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A front space in New York’s beloved landmark Hotel Chelsea has, over the years, served purposes as idiosyncratic and itinerant as its residents: a record store, the famed Chelsea Guitar Shop, even a bait-and-tackle shop. The guitar shop has relocated to another part of the hotel, making way for an elegant arrival: the all-day French bistro Café Chelsea.

As with the hotel’s Hotel Bar and El Quijote, Café Chelsea is operated by Sunday Hospitality. The 200-seater offers cozy banquettes illuminated by vintage chandeliers sourced from an old Lord & Taylor, a handsome zinc bar (try the gin-and-pastis Le Flaneur), and, soon, a private dining room called The Wine Room. Breakfast and lunch are also on the way, but for now, a dinner menu of freshened French classics should satisfy even the most blasé New Yorker: the au poivre stars a delectable steak of maitake mushroom, while the decadent chocolate soufflé doesn’t mess with tradition. And its rotating art collection shows off the creations of Hotel Chelsea residents of the past and, hopefully, future.

Denver’s design scene is only getting hotter with the arrival of Emerson Bailey, which took over a former firehouse on the main drag of the city’s design district and filled it with world-class antiques, midcentury vintage gems, and future classics. The early-1900s building needed “a bit of a facelift,” founder Susan Weiss tells Surface. “I walked in and fell in love, but we had to touch every surface. There were purple window casings, gold walls, and a very beat-up floor.” A careful cleanup and whitewashing revealed 20-foot ceilings and a dozen massive, arched windows. “The architecture itself was strong enough” on its own, she says.

Sweden-based curator Daniel Larsson helped fill it back up. Initial offerings include a rare Arne Jacobsen Egg chair with its original cognac leather and an extraordinary 19th-century Gustavian commode he spent years trying to convince an owner to part with, before nicknaming it “The Louis Vuitton Commode” thanks to its distinctive painted decoration.

Along with the antiques, Emerson Bailey also carries new design objects. “We want to show our clients various smaller Scandinavian brands that are maybe not represented in America,” Larsson says, like the Danish fixture manufacturer Toni. The Denver location is joined this summer by a second gallery located in a light and airy former canning factory in Bozeman, Montana. “It’s always about finding beauty and rarity,” Weiss says. “It’s a special treat for the designers in the trade here.” And the rest of us.

Our new weekly scoop on industry players moving onwards and upwards.

Art Busan is in expansion mode, with plans to launch a new fair called Define Seoul in the South Korean capital. Kicking off on Nov. 1 in Seongsu-dong, the five-day fair will be led by artistic director Teo Yang, who selected the theme “A Look Within Matter” for the inaugural edition to explore how design and art mutually influence each other.

The Cranbrook Educational Community named two deans to senior leadership roles at the Cranbrook Academy of Art: Lynn Tomaszewski as Dean of Academic Affairs, and Michael Stone-Richards as Dean of Programs and Partnerships. Each will begin later this month. Across the pond, Mary Evans was appointed the new director of London’s Slade School of Fine Art after current director Kieren Reed announced his departure for a sabbatical.

Jack Shainman Gallery recently announced the representation of the Estate of Emanoel Araújo, as well as an exhibition opening next month. It marks the late Brazilian artist’s debut presentation at the gallery and his first major New York survey since the 1980s.

Beverly Hills is home to a bevy of distinguished architecture, but few structures stand out like Edward Durrell Stone’s landmark Perpetual Savings and Loan Bank building. Sporting a Romanesque facade of repeating arches, the eight-story gem now known as 9720 Wilshire recently underwent a renovation by award-winning local firm Montalba Architects. While the revamp touched the lobby and basement, its finest moment sits outside in the plaza.

There, the firm replaced a fountain that once housed a gold-plated Harry Bertoia sculpture but was decommissioned in 2010 after a series of leaks. In its place is a circular light well—made of backward-arching bronze prongs that mimic the curves of the facade—that drops into the basement, where a glass-clad sunken garden of evergreen landscaping brings in light and creates a tranquil focal point.

Standard is the Los Angeles architecture and interior design partnership of architects Jeffrey Allsbrook and Silvia Kuhle. Standard’s projects are guided by identity and culture, reflecting the narrative for which they’re designed. Conscious of architecture’s potential to communicate, from a way of living to a company’s image, their work aspires to provide the setting that expresses the project’s conceptual idea.

Surface Says: Standard’s work exemplifies a mastery of harmony, craft, and complimentary existence with the natural world. Look no further than their residential projects like Forrest Knoll and Wildlife, which accentuate the finer points of picturesque Southern California.

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