LEADING London gallery Maureen Paley will present the fourth solo exhibition of works by Peter Hujar. The exhibition will display a series of photographs that documented the burgeoning 1970s and early ‘80s nightclub scene in New York, capturing the spectacle of performers indulging in artifice, beatifying their faces in a prism of colours before going on stage.
Charles Ludlam backstage at The Ridiculous Theatre Company, 1984.
Photograph: Peter Hujar. © 1987 The Peter Hujar Archive LLC, courtesy The Peter Hujar Archive and Maureen Paley, London
Mario Montez Backstage at The Palm Casino Revue, 1974.
Photograph: Peter Hujar © 1987 The Peter Hujar Archive LLC, courtesy The Peter Hujar Archive and Maureen Paley, London
It was from renting a loft above the Eden Theatre in the East Village that Hujar first became involved in the Neighbourhood’s counterculture orbit. The flat soon morphed into a studio where he photographed the most dazzling and commanding stars, including the Cockettes in 1971, when the legendary drag theatre troupe left a trail of glitter from their home in San Francisco to New York, embarking on a ill-fated three-week tour.
Cockette Link Martin, 1971. Photograph: Peter Hujar. © 1987 The Peter Hujar Archive LLC, courtesy The Peter Hujar Archive and Maureen Paley, London
Larry Ree Backstage, 1973. Photograph: Peter Hujar.© 1987 The Peter Hujar Archive LLC, courtesy The Peter Hujar Archive and Maureen Paley, London
In her introduction to Hujar’s monograph Portraits in Life and Death, American writer Susan Sontag states, “Fleshed and moist-eyed friends and acquaintances stand, sit, slouch, mostly lie – and are made to appear to meditate on their own mortality…Peter Hujar knows that portraits in life are always, also, portraits in death.”
Though Hujar’s black and white imagery captures the evolving queer community, the photographs take on a poignant and tender turn as many of Hujar’s subjects succumbed to the AIDS crisis in 1984. The illness ripped its way through circles, leaving a path of devastation in its wake, eventually causing the death of Hujar himself.
Drag Artist Backstage with Fan, The Palm Casino Revue , 1974. Photograph: Peter Hujar. © 1987 The Peter Hujar Archive LLC, courtesy The Peter Hujar Archive and Maureen Paley, London
Black-Eyed Susan Backstage at Camille, 1974. Photograph: Peter Hujar. © 1987 The Peter Hujar Archive LLC, courtesy The Peter Hujar Archive and Maureen Paley, London
Hujar’s work has previously been exhibited across Europe and the United States, with permanent collections in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Peter Hujar’s subjects may be fleeting, ghostly characters to look upon, yet the portraits are a reminder of the liberated, but precarious times the queer community survived through, which still resonates to this day.
by Sophia Ford-Palmer
Maureen Paley will present the solo exhibition of works by Peter Hujar from May 15 – June 13 2021