The Neal Baer Collection gathers artwork from the 19th century until today with a focus on queer expression. Situating these practices within an art historical framework and highlighting the collaborative exchanges among queer artists, the collection is an outgrowth of Dr. Baer’s long-standing AIDS and LGBTQ+ activism, notably as a former Board Member of ONE Archives Foundation, and of his personal experience of coming out as gay in his 50s. Jelena Kristic has advised Dr. Baer and curated the collection since its inception in 2016.
The collection is interested in expressions of non-normative sexuality, especially from time periods when such practices were censored or denigrated, and in exploring how the position of marginalization could offer a distance and a sense of community from which to critically examine the systems of power acting in our lives. Such concerns form the backbone of the collection, which nevertheless also includes work by non-queer artists sharing a critical approach to analyzing the nature of our attitudes towards sexuality and our socio-political fabric.
Dr. Baer has worked as a television writer/producer and showrunner for the past 30 years, including for such series as ER, Under the Dome, Law and Order: SVU, and Designated Survivor. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Baer lectures around the world on public health advocacy. Dr. Baer is a lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a lecturer at the Yale School of Public Health. He serves on the Board of Fellows at Harvard Medical School. He is the editor of Reshaping Human Nature: The Promise and Peril of CRISPR, a collection of essays exploring the moral and ethical challenges posed by CRISPR technology, which will be published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2023.
Dr. Baer and his husband, Brandon Weiss, live with the collection in their homes in New York City and the Catskills.
We are regularly updating exhibition and publication histories of artists featured in the collection. For more information or questions related to the Neal Baer Collection, please contact Jelena Kristic at mail@kristicadvisory.com or +1 646 883 0043.