2026 Treat a Stranger Grant Recipient

Agosto Machado was a vital participant in and witness to cultural and creative life in New York from the early sixties on, from art, theater, performance, and film to social and political counterculture and the dawn of the gay liberation movement. As part of a cohort of queer revolutionaries, including Marsha P. Johnson, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, and Sylvia Rivera, Machado participated in the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion. Long celebrated for his work in avant-garde theater and performance, in the final four years of his life, he received acclaim and recognition for his visual art, a lifelong practice realized in private until 2022, when Machado presented his first solo exhibition of shrine and altar works at Gordon Robichaux in New York. During the run of his two solo exhibitions at the gallery in 2022 and 2025, Machado made the unique and distinct offering of gallery-sitting during open hours, attending to visitors and friends while sharing stories and memories about his creative community memorialized in his art. His shrine and altar sculptures have since been acquired by The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, and the Toledo Museum of Art (Promised Gift), and a group of his artworks created between the 1960s and 2025 is currently featured in the 2026 Whitney Biennial.

Photo by Lola Flash, Courtesy Gordon Robichaux, NY