The art sector is becoming aware that cultural institutions are generators of discourse and must play a role in favour of equity and equal opportunities. To a certain extent, we only know the art that makes the leap to the great museums, the artists who star in magazine covers, head sales rankings or compete to be in the top ten. There is, however, an unknown art, an extensive production that develops outside the mainstream of contemporary creation and that gives voice to a multitude of visions about the world and plastic expression.

Wangechi Mutu. “Water Woman”, 2017. Artwork acquired by BMA.

In recent times, some centres stated their intention to open their doors to artistic expressions seeking for a place in the broad panorama of international art. Either from less favoured collectives or from lesser-known countries, the determination of some institutions to host these forms of expression is crystallising in new open-ended and comprehensive policies.

Jack Whitten. “Cherrypicker,” 1990.

Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) is an example of this line of action. This painting-gallery founded in the American Gilded Age, in 1914, holds a fund of 95,000 works from the 19th century to the present and boasts of having the largest collection of Matisse pieces in the world (about 1000). The museum also holds one of the biggest collections of African art in the country and several masterpieces of European art.

Amy Sherald, “Planes, rockets, and the spaces in between”, 2018. Artwork acquired by BMA.

This institution has decided to sell some of its great pieces of contemporary art in order to buy works from collectives marginalised from the conventional art circuit, with special attention to women artists and art created by African-Americans. As its director, Christopher Bedford, points out, it is about "correcting or rewriting the post-war artistic canon". In fact, last May the museum sold five paintings at auction and is closing some private sales to get rid of works by Franz Kline, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Rauschenberg or Warhol with which to feed a fund for future acquisitions.

Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley. “In The Body of the Sturgeon”, 2017. Artwork acquired by BMA.

Some of the money has already been reinvested in works by artists from the African diaspora such as Wangechi Mutu, Isaac Julien, Njideka Akunyili Crosby or Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and soon Amy Sherald, an African-American painter from Baltimore who became renowned after Michelle Obama commissioned her official portrait. In Bedford's opinion, none of this should arouse such interest and surprise. The responsibility of an art centre is to be up-to-date and offer a real vision of current creation, not just maintain the canonical bias inherited.

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.