IMLBB ART SHOW 2026

“Sooner or later, though, no matter where in the world we live, we must join the diaspora, venturing beyond our biological family to find our logical one, the one that actually makes sense for us.”

 

- Armistead Maupin,

Logical Family: A Memoir (prologue)

 

For the inaugural presentation of the IMLBB Art Show in conjunction with The Leather Archives and Museum, the exhibition seeks work which is not only a representation of the leather, kink, fetish and BDSM Community, but one which exists in celebration of and advocates for the sustained queer space custom-made to the specifications and desires of eroticism.

 

That this call remains open to the artist’s interpretation is, by design, an experiment into witnessing the nuance of erotic and fetish-inspired art in the 21st century. Whether art is response to, derived from, or inspired by the Community, the goal of this exhibition is to present a diverse, contrasting range of content and form, media, and bodies, as well as emotional and psychological expression; desire, sensation, intimacy, celebration, survival, etc.

 

We seek work which considers dichotomy. The leather community sustains itself by honoring two paradoxical sides of a coin; conformation via historically established semiotics and an individualized pursuit of self-identity through appearance and behavior. In that spirit, the pursuit of inherent contrast and comparison looms large over much of the queer art canon, fertile ground for the development of compelling work: objectification vs. liberation; camp vs. sincere; violence vs. ecstasy; sub vs. dom, etc.

 

We seek work that considers the ‘coding’ inherent to the world of gear, kink, BDSM and the grandparental underground cultures from which today’s scene derived. From the fetishization of uniform and liberation of roleplay to the paralyzing fear of the AIDS crisis and the euphoria of the Pride march.

 

We seek work that celebrates the human. From hyper-performative presentation to the subversive to the radically vulnerable, this will be an exhibition of acceptance and investigation. We seek a diversity of bodies, ages, identities, and non-figurations which consider the effect and representation of the Community, not just as an applied layer of personality, but as an extension of one’s lived understanding and experience.

 

We seek work which investigates the proposal that “masculinity is an artificial and constructed performance that always relies on props,” (Fernbach, 2000, p. 239), which indeed may include, when considered more broadly, the use of clothing, objects, gestures, and physical appearance. The idea may further contend that the dressed body is in fact more sexualized than the naked one, whereby bare skin is covered and replaced, sometimes entirely, with the idealized avatar of animal leather, synthetic rubber, and the like to sculpt and redefine both the body and the character so as to allow its wearer a wholly sustained interim persona.

 

We seek work that considers the abstract senses underlying the physical experience. While the human body is, no doubt, the frame upon which the overarching concept is physically applied, there is room, if not need, for the exploration and experience of fetish and kink as a non-body, abstracted sensorial conceit. Ritual and rite, bristling ridges of desire, masks of anonymity, the sublimity of release; that which has no concrete or universally accepted symbol of its existence yet is broadly experienced and deeply held.

 

All inroads to the theme are welcome for the 2026 edition of the IMLBB Art Show. As we consider the place and time of this exhibition, we open ourselves to the potent power of art in the 21st century. A diversity of ideas, a collective celebration, an expression of strength in a life unapologetically lived.

 

Work cited: Fernbach, Amanda. 2000. “The Fetishization of Masculinity in Science Fiction: The Cyborg and the Console Cowboy.”