PETER HUJAR IN THE PRESS:

Mousse Magazine’s and AnOther Man’s recent published material about Peter Hujar and the Raven Row exhibition “Eyes Open in the Dark” which closed in London last month:

An Honesty Thing: Peter Hujar, “Eyes Open in the Dark” at Raven Row, London

Mousse Magazine review by Alex Bennett

Like a vow, a shine, a chance, or a breath, a photograph is something taken. This taking suggests a transgression that effects some form of transformation, that destines an infidelity. Yet in Peter Hujar’s vitalized portraits—coarsened and creamed, dusted and darkened—there is far less taking than giving. This giving arose from Hujar’s patience, noticing the shared introspection of each subject’s bringing into being of themselves. Difficulties are detours, discoveries, in a person’s attentiveness to oneself, and therein one finds. One finds that to be oneself takes a lifetime. In between, an exhale, a photograph, rendering and releasing the portrait as a slipped, unbuttoned pact. Arresting because unloosing, Hujar said: “It’s an honesty thing.”

These honesties are now well historicized. Eyes Open in the Dark at Raven Row, London, sympathetically curated by the artist’s biographer John Douglas Millar and Hujar’s close friend and printer Gary Schneider, attests to these intricate dignities and their irrepressible gravity. Surveying works primarily from the 1970s and 1980s, the show largely represents Hujar’s final decade. What emerges is an attentiveness to subjects being impossibly themselves, and the intimacy forged to bring about such presence—something of a Hujar thematic so particularized and individuated, it nearly evades definition. Every “I” defies. As Roland Barthes asked, “I spread myself around: my whole little universe in crumbs; at the center, what?”. Squarely, Hujar might have answered: you.

Remembering Peter Hujar Through the Stories of Those Who Knew Him

Five creative forces – Nan Goldin, Linda Rosenkrantz and Gary Schneider, John Douglas Millar and John Heys – reflect on the enduring influence and intimate legacy of Peter Hujar

Nan Goldin, artist, on Peter Hujar Interview by Lucy Kumara Moore :

“Peter was a best-kept secret of downtown New York. He was not known in the wider world. He’s known much better now than when he was alive. Standing in front of Peter’s work is a moving experience; it changes the way you see. It’s very important to see Peter’s work in real life. I own about ten of Peter’s prints – my house is full of them…

…Peter was very quiet and seemed shy, but had a genius wit. I was living with Greer Lankton when she was photographed by him and she described it as being made love to. He was very seductive, as a person. He photographed people he was already intimate with, or that he wanted to be intimate with. His work is very tender.

Everyone was in love with Peter, including myself. He told me he wanted to photograph me and much to my regret it never happened. The only pictures of me are 35mm, from Cookie Mueller’s wedding when I was a blonde. We had so much fun photographing Cookie’s wedding and Greer Lankton’s wedding together. That was when he was trying to do my kind of work and I was trying to do his…”

Text by Linda Rosenkrantz, writer and author of Peter Hujar’s Day :

“I met Peter in the 1950s, when we were both relatively young – and we stayed close for the rest of his life. I’ve found recorded in some of my period journals some of the things we would do together: museum and gallery openings, dinners in Chinatown, drinks at the Cedar Street Tavern, (later it was Max’s Kansas City) ice skating in Central Park with a small group that included Paul Thek, dancing at a place called The Dom, going to movies, among those specified – often shown at the Museum of Modern Art – Look Back in Anger, Open City, The Bicycle Thief, Les Amantes, Coq d’or, Rashomon, plus occasional theatrical and ballet performances.

I have been told that I was his most frequently photographed subject and, indeed, there is evidence of Hujar beautified visions of me in locales ranging from Central Park to Times Square in New York, from Woodstock to Fire Island, Florence to Rome to Sicily. Over time the circle widened to include me with my mother, my young sister, my husband and my daughter Chloe – the little girl in the iconic decisive moment picture bouncing a ball. And then there was the author photo for my first book Talk, the gift of covering my ‘engagement’ and wedding. Peter Hujar truly chronicled my life…

In a letter he once sent to me from Italy, Peter wrote, “You are my only real sweetheart.”
He will always remain one of mine.”

Text by John Heys, filmmaker :

“The Angels of Light – the troupe’s second show titled Birdie Follies. I have no idea how I wound up in this show as short as it was. I was cast as a Black Swan, inspired by a stay in Malaga, Spain where I saw my first one. I had a face applied with specific sequins etc, my eyes lined black as much as possible to replicate this exotic creature. My brief bodice was covered in black – all glittery and feathered – and my short tutu was a mass of gathered black tulle. I wore sheer black hose on my legs and my favourite … very large, flapping black rubber flippers on my feet. Truly, that was the closest resemblance, in my mind, to this Black Swan I had seen.

Peter Hujar, if you can fathom such, was cast as Mother Goose. We were to have a duet, which never happened, but he looked like no one had ever seen him before: quite tall, a bit dowdy, yet motherly in a bonnet and a huge hoop skirted dress. That dress was real from someplace and not homemade…

…My only regret in my long friendship with Peter is that we never had our duet. “

Text by John Douglas Millar, writer and author of Peter Hujar’s upcoming biography :

“One of the particularities of writing Hujar’s biography is the relative lack of textual evidence available. He did not keep a journal, his temperament and his relative obscurity to the market meant he did not take part in many interviews. He was a fastidious keeper of correspondence, but letters he sent are sparse. One result is that I rely to a significant degree on the journals, letters, documents and recorded testimony of others; he is spoken in other’s voices. Of course, this is true in varying degrees of any biographical subject, but what strikes me is that his profoundly felt present absence at the centre of this constellation of memorial and document mirrors the way his photographic portraits register the same. He appears most fully in the quality of the other’s gaze. From within that fresh-eye-water-glint the questions bank: what kind of person could prompt a subject to unveil like this? Who could elicit this kind of gaze, so open, so seemingly trusting, so without guile or apparent performance, so loving and desperate for connection, and yet locked within the essential solitude of a mortal body? What verb might be appropriate for what Hujar was doing with his Rollieflex – taking, catching, shooting, making? Hujar’s photography suggests the need for a different vocabulary. I seek it. Perhaps though I cannot fully answer what Hujar’s life and work mean for me, because to do so would be to try to contain or define the affect and meaning of the image I began with, the affective kernel from which I write. Perhaps I must, for now, let another’s words do the work.”

Text by Gary Schneider, artist and photographic printer :

“Peter’s life and work have been part of my life and work since we met in 1977. He was my friend and mentor. I often assisted him when he photographed on the street and was also photographed by him over the ten years I knew him. I became a professional printer under his guidance. I printed for him in 1987, the last year of his life, and have been printing his work again since 2008.

Each time I make one of his prints, I must work out how he would want me to read the narrative of the image. The narrative was largely created by him in the darkroom. My job is to recreate the actual steps he took to make the print. He made photographs that fully embodied his ethics, placing absolute value in the singularity of another person, animal or thing. The empathy in all his photographs is what means the most to me. It is what influences me with my own portraits…

…I’m now 17 years older than Peter was when he died. I have been printing photography for almost as long as Peter lived. I’m planning on making his work and mine till I die or lose my mind or my eyes – whichever comes first.”

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