The Dyke Show (1979)

Between 1979 and 1984, JEB presented The Dyke Show over 80 times to packed audiences in community centers and universities across the United States and Canada. The show combined portraits, documentary images, and erotic photographs by photographers ranging from the earliest days of the medium to the contemporary era. JEB’s narration blends the irony of queer stand-up with the seriousness of a committed historian. The Dyke Show invites lesbians around the world to celebrate who they are and to document their lives and loves.
In 2023, JEB digitized her slides and recorded a live performance of the show in order to preserve its legacy. Aperture magazine hailed the work as “a remarkable collection of lesbian representation and reflection.”

JEB (Joan E. Biren) is an American artist and activist, born in 1944.

Internationally recognized, she has had a profound influence both within LGBTQ+ communities and on the broader public, challenging representations of lesbians, our understanding of photographic history, and dominant narratives around image-making. She began documenting LGBTQ+ lives in 1971.

Her first book, Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians, published in 1979, features portraits of lesbian couples of different ages and social backgrounds in their everyday lives. A radical visual testimony for its time, it was reissued in 2021 by Anthology Editions. Her second book, Making a Way: Lesbians Out Front, originally published in 1987, will be reissued in summer 2025 by the same publisher, underscoring the enduring relevance of her work.

Her photography is included in many major collections, including the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Now in her eighties, JEB lives surrounded by her chosen family and is attempting to retire from media production—though she has no intention of giving up her lifelong commitment to social justice.