Image: Palm Springs Art Museum
'A Queer Arcana: Art, Magic, and Spirit' remains on view at Palm Springs Art Museum’s Main Museum in Palm Springs through 18 October 2026.
The exhibition brings together an intergenerational group of artists to consider how magic, spirituality and esoteric knowledge have shaped queer art and culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Taking arcana as hidden and mystical knowledge, it considers obscure spiritual practices as sources of connection and transformation, and explores magic as a means of envisioning worlds beyond repressive systems, reclaiming sexuality as a sacred power and building community.
Works address traditions and practices including Western occultism, witchcraft and goddess worship, Christian mysticism, New Age beliefs influenced by Eastern philosophies, and shamanic traditions rooted in Indigenous knowledge. Participating artists include Carlos Alfonzo, Judy Baca, Nao Bustamante, Candice Lin, Mundo Meza, Agnes Pelton, Naudline Pierre, Devan Shimoyama and Faith Wilding.
David Evans Frantz, Curator-at-Large, Q+ Art, curated the exhibition. Highlights include Clarity Haynes’s 'Altar for Laura Aguilar' (2022), Mundo Meza’s 'Fusion' (1975), Devan Shimoyama’s 'Le Monde' (2024), and Steven Arnold’s 'Inventing Infinity' (1990).
