Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
What does it mean to implore someone to “have several seats?”
Not to be overused or thrown around willy-nilly, the term is a directive for someone to calm down, allow more room for others, or to simply do less.
The phrase originated in Black and Latinx ballroom culture and it’s the namesake for an entire section of Toward Joy: New Frameworks for American Art, where portrait paintings from our American art collection are hung at seated height, so visitors are eye-level with the sitters in the paintings when viewed from the park benches in the gallery.
Victoria von Blaque, entertainer and co-founder of the House of Transcendence, is one of the ballroom and drag artists we invited to write a special gallery label and “spill the T” or tell the truth about the history of seated portraits which have been inextricably tied to nation-building, positions of power, and attempts by white Americans to exert control over the historical record.
Learn more: bit.ly/bkmamericanart
#BrooklynMuseum #AmericanArt #BallroomCulture
What does it mean to implore someone to “have several seats?”
Not to be overused or thrown around willy-nilly, the term is a directive for someone to calm down, allow more room for others, or to simply do less.
The phrase originated in Black and Latinx ballroom culture and it’s the namesake for an entire section of Toward Joy: New Frameworks for American Art, where portrait paintings from our American art collection are hung at seated height, so visitors are eye-level with the sitters in the paintings when viewed from the park benches in the gallery.
Victoria von Blaque, entertainer and co-founder of the House of Transcendence, is one of the ballroom and drag artists we invited to write a special gallery label and “spill the T” or tell the truth about the history of seated portraits which have been inextricably tied to nation-building, positions of power, and attempts by white Americans to exert control over the historical record.
Learn more: bit.ly/bkmamericanart
#BrooklynMuseum #AmericanArt #BallroomCulture
