Queer Provenance: Collecting as Care
Featuring artwork from the Permanent Collection
Spencer J. Harrison, Zachari Logan, Attila Richard Lukacs, and Kent Monkman
Presented as part of The Museum of Closetry
Art Gallery of Peterborough, 2025
documentation forthcoming
Queer artists have always collected each other’s work, not as a gesture of ownership, but as a form of care and admiration. These acts of collecting often occur within networks of friendships and collaborations and speak to shared interests, experiences, and perspectives.
When these collections are donated to public institutions, they carry with them not just artistic merit, but provenance. Provenance—typically a record of ownership—honours the donor. Here, it points to stories of community, mentorship, and identity perhaps otherwise unknown.
In these gifts, we see collecting transformed from an act of accumulation into one of generosity, from possession into preservation. This is collecting as care—where every object is a symbol of appreciation, a gesture of solidarity, and a commitment to keeping queer histories visible.