Bird Circuit 90069 and its Hidden LGBTQ+ History

A new exhibition has taken flight at West Hollywood Library. Behind its beautiful birds and dreamlike landscapes is a fascinating piece of LGBTQ+ history you may not know.

Before LGBTQ+ establishments could openly advertise themselves as queer spaces, bars often relied on coded names to signal that they were places of refuge, community, and connection. One convention paired a color with a bird, leading to names such as the Blue Parrot, Black Swan, and White Swallow. Collectively, this hidden network became known as the “bird circuit.”

It was a subtle language born out of necessity. At a time when LGBTQ+ people faced intense social stigma, discriminatory laws, and police raids, recognizing a welcoming establishment could help people find community while navigating very real risks.

That remarkable history is at the heart of Bird Circuit 90069, a new exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Vojislav Radovanović, now on view at West Hollywood Library.

The history goes back much further than one might expect. One of the earliest known LGBTQ+ establishments to follow the color-and-bird naming pattern was London’s White Swan, a “molly house” that was raided in 1810. By the mid-20th century, similarly named establishments could be found in urban areas across the United States. The phrase Bird Circuit even appeared in Tennessee Williams’ 1953 play Camino Real.

For Bird Circuit 90069, Radovanović brings that history home to West Hollywood. Several works pay homage to historic LGBTQ+ bars and clubs in West Hollywood and Los Angeles, including the Red Raven, Blue Parrot, Club Flamingo, and Flamingos. The exhibition’s “90069” is a nod to the local West Hollywood ZIP code.

Through paintings and drawings, Radovanović transforms this history of coded survival into something vibrant and poetic. Birds become symbols of freedom, migration, resilience, and identity, appearing alongside portraiture, lush landscapes, and surreal feathered figures. The result is both beautiful and moving: a contemporary celebration of the people and places that created community, even when doing so had to happen quietly.

Bird Circuit 90069 is more than an exhibition worth seeing. It’s an invitation to discover a chapter of LGBTQ+ history hidden in plain sight, and to consider how creativity, coded language, and community helped people find one another across generations.

See Bird Circuit 90069 at West Hollywood Library, 625 N. San Vicente Boulevard, during regular library hours through late January 2027. Admission is free.

Learn more about the City of West Hollywood’s arts programming at www.weho.org/arts.