2026 Biennial
Dare to Stare: 19th-Century Circus and Sideshow Portraits
In the 19th century, enormous crowds engaged in bold looking at circuses and sideshows. Thrilled by colorful spectacles, death-defying acts, exotic cultures, wild animals, rousing music, and amusing clowns, audiences savored both watching dynamic performances in person and sustained, private gazing at performers in buying their carte-de-visite and cabinet card portraits. Among these portraits were bearded ladies, conjoined twins, snake charmers, albinos, contortionists, fire breathers, little people, and sword swallowers.
By examining choices that sitters and photographers made regarding clothing, jewelry, hairstyle, pose, and gesture, as well as autographs and inscriptions on card mounts, this exhibition shifts the historical focus of such photographs from spectacle and curiosity to empathy and a deeper understanding of self-presentation and performativity. This interrogation asks why such portraits were so popular, what they expressed about visual culture in the United States, and how consumers viewed, shared, and displayed their souvenirs. The intention is to analyze such photographs in terms of the sitters’ agency, dignity, and autonomy. While some performers developed highly specific skills to achieve notoriety, others transformed circumstances of birth with physical anomalies to make a living by captivating audiences with their distinctive appearances. Disabilities Studies demand that we consider the achievements of differing bodies from the past as vital to all Americans today.
Artists: George Albert, Mark Allen & Co, Edward Anthony, Henry Tiebout Anthony, Lorenzo Marvin Baker, Edward Bierstadt, Abraham Bogardus, Mathew Brady, James V. Brown, Thomas A. Brown, William Henry Brown, George Wilbert Browning, David Thomas Burrell, Dorrance F. Butler, Joseph J. Caddy, John Carbutt, Charles G. Carleton, Ray D. Chapman, Elmer Chickering, Frederick William Clark, Charles B. Conant, Daniel T. Cowell, Culver Pictures, Inc., Gertrude Davis, Frank Dawson, George M. Dempsie, L. F. Dobler, Daniel Downey, William Downey, Charles Eisemann, Benjamin J. Falk, Abraham S. Feinberg, John H. Fitzgibbon, Charles DeForest Fredricks, John Friis, Washington Lafayette Germon, James M. Goins, Alfred D. Goldsmith, Herbert Goodridge, Andrew Alison Grier, Andrew Augustus Grier, Joseph Havard, Charles Henkel, George William Howie, Henry T. Hughes, John White Hurn, David Husted, Caroline B. James, Thomas S. Johnson, Anson Lentz, Charles Lincoln Lentz, James A. Linder, Antoine Lumiére, Margot, John Dey Maxwell, Stephen David Morris, Gustave Moses, Enrico Negretti, August Wilhelm Obermüller, E. Percy Olive, Isaiah N. Packard, Bransby Cooper Pentz, Ezra J. Pottter, The Rembrandt Studio, Charles E. Ridenour, Joseph Samo, Napoleon Sarony, Andrew J. Simpson, Aaron A. Smith, William E. Steckbauer, Stereoscopic Co., Charles Sweet, George Albert Swords, William H. Swords, Max P. Thiele, Charles Frederick Treble, Minnie K. Wachtman, Alvin B. Warfel, George Kendall Warren, George M. Watson, Michael A. Wesner, Albert W. Wood, Walter Burton Wright, Joseph Zambra, Edward G. Zoellner
Lentz Bros., James Morris, Elastic Skin Man, c. 1880s. Cabinet card, 6½ × 4¼ inches. Nick Vaccaro Collection. Courtesy of Nick Vaccaro
Abraham Bogardus, Chang Yu Sing, c. 1880s. Cabinet card, 6½ × 4¼ inches. Nick Vaccaro Collection. Courtesy of Nick Vaccaro
Swords Bros., Miss Uno, c. 1880s. Cabinet card, 6½ × 4¼ inches. Nannette Maciejunes Collection. Courtesy of Nannette Maciejunes
2026 Biennial
Venue Details
DAAP Library
DAAP Aronoff Building, RM 5480
2624 Clifton Ave
Cincinnati, OH 45221
(513) 556-1335
Mon–Thur 8am–8pm, Fri 8am–5pm, Sat & Sun 1–5pm
Free to the Public
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