Le Bal exhibition connects Donna Gottschalk's 1960s-70s queer photography with Carla Williams's later self-portraits

An exhibition titled 'We Others' at Le Bal in Paris presents a dialogue between photographer Donna Gottschalk's work from the late 1960s to mid-1970s and Carla Williams's series 'Tender' (1984–1999). Gottschalk's intimate black-and-white photographs document her lesbian friends and lovers in New York, San Francisco, Oregon, and California, capturing everyday moments, joy, and community during the Gay Liberation Front era following Stonewall. The show, curated through a collaborative process with writer and art historian Hélène Giannechini, includes a film featuring Gottschalk's reflections and diaristic wall texts that weave past and present. Gottschalk's images range from domestic scenes in Lower East Side tenements to outdoor shots in lesbian separatist communities, with notable works including a 1969 photo of friends on a fire escape and a close-up of her sister Myla after a transphobic attack. Williams's self-portraits offer a generational bridge, focusing on black, queer, female self-representation. The exhibition runs through 16 November and emphasizes queer representation as a relational practice rooted in friendship and care networks, rather than nostalgia. Key elements include the inclusion of a Diana Davies photograph from the 1969 Stonewall anniversary protest and references to Gottschalk's first major show at the Leslie Lohman Museum in New York in 2017.