Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei

On the night of June 27 into 28, 1969, queer people vehemently resisted a police raid on the Stonewall Inn bar. For many LGBTQIA communities around the world, the days of the uprising around Christopher Street in New York mark the beginning of the queer revolt. As a joint project of the Goethe-Institut, Schwules Museum Berlin, and the Federal Agency for Civic Education, this exhibition takes the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots as an opportunity to offer an insight into the history of queer movements in the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic, and reunited Germany since the 1960s. Particular emphasis is placed on the manifold relations with US movements. Under the title Queer as German Folk, in the summer of 2019, the exhibition has toured the Goethe-Instituts in Canada, the United States, and Mexico, and also been presented at Schwules Museum Berlin; beginning in 2020, it started to travel to other cities worldwide.
The exhibition highlights moments of the queer movement’s history without claiming to tell the only possible story. Just like the debate about the legacy of the Stonewall Riots, it questions the power dynamic at work in the queer politics of memory. What is under fire today is the appropriation of the riots by those parts of the movement that, in their struggle for social acceptance, lost sight of its radical goals and of the cause of many of its heroes: dykes, drag queens, trans people, sex workers, and young people living in precarious conditions, among them many queer people of color. Perhaps above all else, this debate shows that resistance from civil society is still necessary in the 21st century and must be reinvented again and again. On this note: remember Stonewall and happy Pride!

Exhibition Colophon
Queer as German Folk is a project of the Goethe-Institut North America in collaboration with Schwules Museum, Berlin and the Federal Agency for Civic Education, Berlin as well as local partner organizations in Chicago, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Montreal, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, and Washington DC.

PROJECT LEADERS: Georg Blochmann, Goethe-Institut New York and Birgit Bosold, Schwules Museum Berlin
CURATORS: Birgit Bosold, Carina Klugbauer
ACADEMIC CONSULTANTS: Christopher Ewing, Markues, Ben Miller, Peter Rehberg, Kristine Schmidt, Sébastien Tremblay, Lisa Weinberg
COPY-EDITING: Marie Frank, Anina Falasca
TRANSLATION: Sara Stevenson
SCENOGRAPHY & GRAPHIC DESIGN: chezweitz GmbH, Berlin; Dr. Sonja Beeck and Detlef Weitz with Lena Schmidt, Danielle Gringmuth, Ravena Hengst, Dilara Kadayifci

We have tried our best to obtain all rights of use for the publication of third-party materials. Should the rights of use not have been cleared in individual cases, please contact Schwules Museum Berlin.

Thanks
We thank all those involved in the project for a great and constructive collaboration, all institutions and individuals for granting rights of use, as well as HAU Hebbel am Ufer and the authors of Manifestos for Queer Futures. Our thanks also go to everyone who advised and supported us with their expertise and experience. In particular, we would like to thank all those who shared their “snap moments” with us. ＊The works contain partial nudity, viewers below the age of 12 should be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.