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  • Rebecca Fasman

Rebecca Fasman

Rebecca Fasman (she/her) is the Curator for the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. Her career spans 20 years working in museums and art institutions, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), Deutsche Bank, and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago). She holds an MA in Museum Studies from New York University and a BA in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Ms. Fasman's curatorial practice views art, creativity, sex, and sexuality as lenses through which we can understand more about the nature of humanity, with the ultimate goal of wanting everyone to live the happiest, healthiest, most connected, and opportunity-filled lives they can. 

Ms. Fasman has curated exhibitions for the Kinsey Institute in galleries and art institutions around the world and serves as a liaison for exhibition loans from our research collections. She has worked collaboratively with other curators, with conference & symposium organizers, and has appeared as a guest speaker and media expert on the Kinsey Institute collections and sexuality-related art and artifacts.

Areas of expertise

  • Erotic art
  • Material culture
  • Curatorial collaborations
  • Representations of sex in art collections and institutions

For more information about exhibition loans from our collections, gallery events, or collaborations

Contact

Sensual/Sexual/Social: The Photography of George Platt Lynes. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.
Bettina Rheims: Everything All At Once. McCalla School, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.
Psychopathia Sexualis: The Work of Austin Osman Spare from the Special Collections of the Kinsey Institute, Iceberg Projects, Chicago, IL.
Emilio Sanchez: Intimate Forms, The Cook Center, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.
Curator-in-residence, Beebe Gallery, Kinsey Institute.
Symposium coordinator and speaker. 31 Photographs Symposium: ‘Obscenity,’ Censorship, and Academic Freedom.
Conference co-coordinator. Exhibitionism: Sexuality at the Museum.

Portfolio

Emilio Sanchez: Intimate Forms, The Cook Center, Indiana University, Bloomington; WEAM, Miami 2022-2023; Second Story Studio, Nashville IN, 2025

Universal Language: The Legacy of Sexual and Gender Diversity in the Kinsey Institute Collections, Bloomington, 2022-2025

Intimate Alchemy: David Levinthal's XXX Polaroids, Grunwald Gallery of Art, Bloomington, 2024

Psychopathia Sexualis: The Work of Austin Osman Spare from the Special Collections of the Kinsey Institute, Iceberg Projects, Spring 2022; WEAM, Miami, 2022-2023

Bettina Rheims: Everything All At Once, McCalla School, Bloomington, 2022

Sensual/Sexual/Social: The Photography of George Platt Lynes, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Indianapolis, 2018

Untold Stories, WEAM, Miami, 2017

Private Eyes, Intuit, Chicago, 2016

Protected Beauty, WEAM, Miami, 2016

Preface. Austin Osman Spare: Psychopathia Sexualis, 2022.

The forgotten legacy of gay photographer George Platt Lynes. The Conversation, January, 2019.

The Photography of George Platt Lynes. Newfields Member Magazine, Summer, 2018

Art and a Movie: Muybridge in Focus, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Bloomington.

Art and a Movie: Mapplethorpe in Focus, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Bloomington.

Conference co-coordinator. Exhibitionism: Sexuality at the Museum.

Exhibition talk, Intimate Alchemy: David Levinthal's XXX Polaroids, Grunwald Gallery, Bloomington.

Exhibition talk: Marriette Pathy Allen: Breaking Boundaries, WEAM, Miami.

Robert Mapplethorpe portfolio viewing, 222 Bowery, New York City.

Symposium coordinator and speaker. 31 Photographs Symposium: ‘Obscenity,’ Censorship, and Academic Freedom.

Selected Appearances

Mapplethorpe Unbound: Rediscovered S&M Images Surface in New York City

"This allows us to see a bit more into the journey between what was happening in front of the camera and what the finished work looks like.”

Read at The Observer

What Dr. Ruth Left Behind

“For anyone, what sticks around matters to them,” Fasman said. “And so even if it is a culturally or intellectually insignificant thing, the fact that they had it around them for so long makes it significant.”

Read at The New York Times

Why librarians at Harvard and elsewhere are racing to save vintage porn

“We’re in a place culturally right now where people are still weaponizing knowing about sex, knowing about our bodies.”

Read at the Boston Globe

Film appearance

Hidden Master: The Legacy of George Platt Lynes, 2023.

Learn more

Podcast guest

Private Parts Unknown, "Episode 19: On Being a Keeper of Sexual Artifacts with Kinsey Curator Rebecca Fasman," 2019.

Listen

Onstage guest

Stewart Huff’s Obsessive Curiosities, "S3 E17: Live from the Limestone Comedy Festival," 2019 on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Listen

Additional links and resources

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Kinsey Institute

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150 S Woodlawn Ave.
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(812) 855-7686
kinsey@iu.edu

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