Matthew S. Bajko

Diaries reveal hidden worlds for museums

LGBT History Month: Recant Times of the Past, Open Windows into Life Experiences

by Matthew S. Bajko on October 28, 2019

“Damn I’m going to be a gorgeous man,” Lou Sullivan wrote 40 years ago in one of his personal diaries. Sullivan, who died in 1991 at the age of 39 due to complications from AIDS, was a pioneering transgender activist in the 1970s and 1980s.

For museum curators, garments offer stylish storytelling

LGBT History Month: Clothing Items Share Vignettes of Those Who Wore Them

by Matthew S. Bajko on October 18, 2019

Curators working with the Oakland Museum of California on its first major LGBTQ exhibition, dubbed “Queer California: Untold Stories,” displayed a blue sequined jacket created by San Francisco designer Pat Campano and worn in 1985 by the gender-bending gay disco diva Sylvester.