Peter Hujar: Performance and Portraiture; Italian Journeys
An upcoming exhibition of photographs at Centro Pecci, Prato, Italy. Curated by Grace Deveney, David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Associate Curator of Photography and Media, the Art Institute of Chicago, with Stefano Collicelli Cagol
On view: 12.14.2024 – 05.04.2025. Opening night: 12.13.2024
Peter Hujar (1934 -1987) is one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century who, between the sixties and eighties, immortalized in his shots the bodies of a community of people close to him who became in many cases among the most iconic figures of American culture. Hujar focuses on the beauty of the body in all its forms and postures, immortalized through the themes of portraiture and action. The exhibition is organized by The Art Institute of Chicago, and has been further expanded in collaboration with the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art. In the Pratese iteration, the exhibition is enriched by a series of photographs taken in Italy between the fifties and seventies. In those years, Hujar had the opportunity to travel to different areas and cities of the country including Florence, Palermo and Naples, returning an unexpected vision that is still disturbing today for the intensity with which people, landscapes and animals have been caught.
https://centropecci.it/it/mostre/programma-espositivo-2024
Peter Hujar – Eyes Open in the Dark
Exhibition of photographs at Raven Row in London. Opening January 29 2025, closing April 6 2025.
Peter Hujar – Eyes Open in the Dark (30 January to 6 April 2025) Press Release:
This is the first posthumous exhibition to have access to the complete span of
Peter Hujar’s work. Hujar was a leading figure in the downtown scene of 1970s
and early 80s New York, but at his death in 1987 from AIDS-related pneumonia
his photography was largely unknown to a broader artworld. Now it is widely
admired for the emotional affinity it demonstrates for its subjects, and its austere
formal elegance.
Hujar’s principal concern was forms of portraiture – of his friends and denizens of
the downtown scene, whom he encountered on the street, shot in his apartment
studio or sought out backstage. He also gave attention to architectural, landscape
and street photography, and animal portraiture. Eyes Open in the Dark
concentrates on his later work, when his emergence from a debilitating
depression in 1976 brought about a new expansiveness. The exhibition also
reveals the darkening tone of his photography in the early 1980s, as the AIDS
crisis devastated his community, and his work entered into dialogue with the
younger artist David Wojnarowicz.
Peter Hujar – Eyes Open in the Dark is curated by Hujar’s biographer John Douglas
Millar, and his close friend, the artist and master printer Gary Schneider, with
Alex Sainsbury. As well as lifetime prints it will include prints from little known
works specially prepared by Gary Schneider, working closely with the artist’s
Estate.
Upcoming Group Exhibitions:
Stories of LGBTQIA+ curated by Adriano Pedrosa for Museu de Arte de São Paulo-MASP, Brazil
12.13.2024—4.13.2025
This large-scale collective exhibition Stories of LGBTQIA+ closes the 2024 programming of the year of MASP. With about 200 works from public and private collections from Brazil and abroad, the exhibition will be organized in several nuclei. Stories of LGBTQIA+ will occupy the two main spaces of the MASP gallery dedicated to temporary exhibitions: in the second basement and first floor of the museum, totaling approximately 1,000 m².
The plural notion of stories, in Portuguese, is particularly relevant (as opposed to the notion of History in English, for example), as it can cover fiction and non-fiction, personal or political reports, private or public narratives, having an open, speculative, diverse and polyphonic character.
Since 2016, the Stories are accompanied by a large catalog published in Portuguese and English and an anthology (only in Portuguese), which brings together important texts on the subject, including essays presented during the international seminars organized in previous years in anticipation of the exhibition.
Curators: Adriano Pedrosa, artistic director, MASP; Julia Bryan-Wilson, deputy curator of modern and contemporary art, MASP, with assistance from Leandro Muniz, curatorial assistant, MASP, and Teo Teotonio, curatorial assistant, MASP.
https://www.masp.org.br/exposicoes/programacao-anual-2024
Disco I’m Coming Out:
exhibition at the Philharmonie de Paris
Disco music is coming to Paris, and more precisely to the Philharmonie, in a brand-new exhibition to be discovered from February 14 to August 17, 2025. It’s an opportunity to revisit the history of this musical movement, which originated in the United States over 50 years ago!
After hip-hop, electro and metal, the Philharmonie de Paris turns its attention to disco! This musical genre, which became a worldwide phenomenon in the 80s, is the new theme chosen by La Villette’s cultural establishment. Running from February 14 to August 17, 2025, the ” Disco I’m coming out ” exhibition will take visitors back in time, following in the footsteps of this style born in the USA in the early 70s.
Disco music is firmly rooted in the history and culture of black America, and has left its mark on several generations thanks to cult tracks that have stood the test of time.
Through a series of audiovisual archives, photographs, instruments and costumes, the ” Disco I’m coming out ” exhibition aims to show the political and festive dimensions of this musical movement that has made millions of dancefloor fans dance, and continues to do so to this day. What’s more, disco has brought together different minorities and social classes on the dancefloor.
The aesthetic appeal of disco to artists and designers will also be explored, as will the integration of disco into pop culture, with, of course, the worldwide success of the film ” Saturday Night Fever “.
The exhibition, accompanied by an original remix by Dimitri from Paris, can be seen from February 14 to August 17, 2025 in the exhibition space of the Philharmonie de Paris. To mark this cultural event, a number of concerts are scheduled from February 21 to 23, featuring Cerrone, Dabeull Live Band, a disco party and a waacking dance battle! Find out all about the program on the Philharmonie’s official website.