Williams College exhibit explores queerness

"Possible selves: queer foto vernaculars" is a probing show that asks more questions than it answers. Williams College Museum of Art curator Horace Ballard loosely confronts photographic portraiture, and therefore identity and expression, as seen through "queer aesthetics." For that, these images deserve close, and expansive, investigation.

Queer has come to mean mostly that which isn't inherently cisgender—that is, it includes those who don't accept that gender is a simple binary of male and female. The notions are common in some circles and still new (and even incomprehensible) in others, and it gets complicated fast. That's one of the implicit thrusts of the show, showing what is abundant in our world but still invisible to many. And it is still evolving and uncertain.

In "possible selves," it begins visually, but the implications cross into culture as a whole. Labels new and old seem to be limited and often misleading.

It might serve to see the main gallery in two related halves, starting with a series of grids of square, colorful portraits recently appropriated (with permission) from Instagram. It is fascinating to see this effusion of colorful self-expression. The images—200 of them—are typically intimate, posed, and stylish. These are all beautiful people or beautiful pictures. Some subjects effuse, some reflect, some seem to want to be appreciated. All want to be seen.

There are a few larger works scattered around the gallery, two looking like enlarged Instagram posts, finely made, but not so relevant compared to the grids. A video by Kameron Neal has a great jaunty time playing with self-image in a series of short time-lapse and semi-animated pieces (also posted to Instagram). A pair of more conventional photographs range from the black and white snapshot at a house party that seems to be about hard...