Susan Sontag - Seeing and Being Seen

Her life as a dissident unfolded as if in fast motion. In the early 1950s, she became one of the youngest university lecturers in the U.S.; after an early marriage and motherhood, she did not—as was customary at the time—withdraw from public life, but instead became politically active, had bisexual relationships, got divorced, and worked as a freelance writer while raising her child as a single mother. Her intellectual work and her irrepressible passion for thinking were always original. She engaged early on with photography and film, analyzing artistic genres that were not yet established at the time, such as happenings, science fiction, underground film, and pornography.

In her “Notes on Camp” (1964), she described queer techniques for appropriating the cultural mainstream. With remarkable insight, she recognized the defining influence of photography in a media-driven society. As a passionate cineaste who also directed her own films, Sontag viewed film as “the most vivid, exciting, and significant of all art forms.”

In photographs and descriptions, Susan Sontag herself comes across as a movie star. Iconic photos of her hung on the walls of many lesbian-feminist shared apartments. Susan Sontag was a flamboyant, free-spirited, sometimes difficult, and contradictory role model. She lived a life of autonomy that would have been unimaginable to previous generations.

Susan Sontag struggled with identity labels throughout her life. She came into contact with the queer scene early on but never came out. When, in the late 1980s, she witnessed the social exclusion of people living with AIDS—including among her own circle of friends—she wrote “AIDS and Its Metaphors” (1989), an important text addressing issues of stigmatization, personal responsibility, activism, and solidarity. Her perspective, however, was rooted less in her own queerness than in her experiences with cancer.

• What does Susan Sontag mean to us today?
• What is her relevance in queer cultural history?
• How do we remember today her many appearances in Berlin, a city she visited frequently and for extended periods?

The Gay Museum is taking over the successful exhibition “Susan Sontag: Seeing and Being Seen” from the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn (2025) and expanding it.

A new section will explore Susan Sontag’s traces in Berlin—featuring recollections from contemporaries such as Ulrike Ottinger, Gesine Strempel, Erika & Ulrich Gregor, and Carolin Emcke.

Another section is dedicated to the influence of Sontag’s thinking on queer culture. Central to “Susan Sontag – Seeing and Being Seen” are reflections on visibility, self-presentation, and representation. They demonstrate the great sensitivity to all forms of discrimination and exclusion that Susan Sontag possessed as a queer Jewish woman.

“Susan Sontag’s work can be read without considering queerness as a backdrop. But it makes much more sense to read it with queerness in mind. And when you consider how consistently Susan Sontag’s work—and her diaries as well—seek to expand her vocabulary, find more precise terms, and use words to make sense of the world—then you naturally see someone who is searching for a way to articulate what has been tabooed or silenced.” (Carolin Emcke)

Curated by: Dr. Kristina Jaspers and Dr. Birgit Bosold

Featuring artistic works by: Susan Sontag, Jack Smith, Annie Leibovitz, Peter Hujar, August Sander, Ingmar Bergman, The Supremes, and others

New video interviews with Ulrike Ottinger, Erika and Ulrich Gregor, Gesine Strempel, Carolin Emcke, Joachim Sartorius, Kenny Fries, and Joan Nestle

The exhibition is a reprise and expansion of the exhibition of the same name at the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn (March 14–September 28, 2025).

Supported by the Capital City Culture Fund and the Senate for Culture and Social Cohesion