Antebellum claims to be the first art gallery dedicated to "fetish as art," serving primarily the LGBTQ communities. It was curated and run by Rick Castro, an American photographer (13 Years of Bondage: The Photography of Rick Castro) and motion picture director (Hustler White, 45 Minutes of Bondage).

Regarding the choice of the gallery's name "Antebellum," Castro said he saw the years it was open as "a 21st century pre-war era - a time of cultural strife between social freedoms and the religious right culminating in a bad reality TV millionaire becoming dictator. The Antebellum era, like the Weimar era are historic short bursts of creative experimentation and freedoms existing under a looming dark cloud of things to come."