New Publications!

Peter Hujar: Rialto

This unique exhibition catalogue, published with Rodovid Press in Kyiv in conjunction with the artist’s exhibition at The Ukrainian Museum, provides new insights into the seminal and lesser- known aspects of Peter Hujar’s career, living and working in the Ukrainian Village. The exhibition explores the first fifteen years of Hujar’s professional career. He was a consummate technician, and his portraits of people, animals and landscapes, with their exquisite black-and-white tonalities, were extremely influential. Highly emotional yet stripped of excess, Hujar’s photographs are always beautiful, although rarely in a conventional way.

The lushly illustrated publication features 77 photographs, some never seen or published. Three important interviews with Hujar’s closest friends and colleagues, plus a scholarly essay on his work with the photographer Richard Avedon, chronicle Hujar’s ceaseless creative exploration and observation of life in the East Village of New York.

Buy Peter Hujar: Rialto

Portraits in Life and Death

A new edition of the cult classic photography book by the legendary Peter Hujar.

“I am moved by the purity of [Hujar’s] intentions…. These memento mori can exorcise morbidity as effectively as they evoke its sweet poetry and its panic.” —Susan Sontag

Portraits in Life and Death is the only book of photographs published by Peter Hujar during his lifetime. The twenty-nine portraits of creative people—ranging from William Burroughs, Susan Sontag, and John Waters to Larry Ree, founder of the Trocadero Gloxinia Ballet Company, and T.C. (whose identity is unclear)—possess a haunting beauty and degree of psychological examination that is both offbeat and riveting. Following the portraits come eleven images that can only be described as devastating: pictures of semi-preserved, clothed bodies of nineteenth-century Sicilians found in the arid catacombs beneath a church in Palermo. 

There is no necessary connection in the photographs themselves or between the two sections of the book, yet the pictorial progression from life to death is an emblem of the journey we all take. The living subjects seem to be meditating on the mortality that is limned with such profound effect in the catacomb pictures. In different ways, both groups of images speak to the basic fears and emotions that we carry with us, somewhere beyond our consciousness. After viewing this extraordinary book, it is almost impossible not to make those connections and interpretations or be moved by Hujar’s consistent ability to convey what appears to be the inner spirit of his subjects. 

Even so, an air of nonchalance, even gaiety, hovers over the photographs. The book is odd, oblique, sometimes opaque, and certainly deeply felt; but it sticks to the mind like a burr. It will be noticed. Once seen, it cannot be forgotten.

Published by Liveright, W.W. Norton

Peter Hujar Behind the Camera and in the Darkroom,

Intimate remembrances of Peter Hujar from his friend, posthumous printer and sometimes subject Gary Schneider

This suite of heartfelt accounts invites the reader firsthand into artist Gary Schneider’s journeys in image making with his friend and mentor, the beloved photographer Peter Hujar (1934–87). Drawing from a selection of Hujar’s pictures, Schneider (born 1954) takes each image as a point of departure to share his expertise as Hujar’s posthumous printer. Outside the darkroom, Schneider situates his chronicle squarely within the transformative social shifts of downtown New York City in the nascent years of the AIDS crisis. Through a mix of Schneider’s stories and technical prowess, he creates a rich tapestry that serves both as a historical testimony and a portrait of their relationship.


Schneider also writes in captivating detail describing his experience with Peter Hujar refining his abilities as a printer, as a subject of Hujar’s portraiture, as an extra hand accompanying the photographer on cruisy, nighttime shoots, and of when he turned the lens on Hujar to record him as a subject in his filmic work. Informative as it is stirring, Peter Hujar Behind the Camera and in the Darkroom is an indelible portrait of a relationship delineated by photography, desire and gratitude.

Peter Hujar Behind the Camera and in the Darkroom is published by Bookcrave Books

Currently available on Amazon

What’s on now?

Current group shows featuring work by Peter Hujar:

Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection

At the V&A Museum in London from May 18th 2024- January 5th 2025

An unparalleled selection of the world’s leading photographers, telling the story of modern and contemporary photography. Discover iconic images across subjects such as fashion, celebrity, reportage and the male body. 

Showcasing over 300 rare prints from 140 photographers, Fragile Beauty is a major presentation of 20th- and 21st-century photography on loan from the private collection of Sir Elton John and David Furnish.

Selected from their collection of over 7,000 images, the photographs (many of which will be on public display for the first time) are era-defining images which explore the connection between strength and vulnerability inherent in the human condition.

The exhibition covers the period from 1950 to the present day, bringing together an unrivaled selection of the world’s leading photographers to tell the story of modern and contemporary photography. Celebrated works include a monumental installation of 149 Nan Goldin prints from her Thanksgiving series, as well as images from Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, William Eggleston, Diane Arbus, Sally Mann, Zanele Muholi, Ai Weiwei, Carrie Mae Weems and others.

Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection runs from 18 May 2024 to 5 January 2025

GROW IT, SHOW IT! A Look at Hair from Diane Arbus to TikTok

Sep 13th 2024 – Jan 12th 2025 at The Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany.

From Afro, locs, braids or cornrows to bob, beehive or taper, hair is an integral part of our everyday culture and offers unlimited design possibilities. How we choose to show or hide, grow or shave  our head, facial and body hair is an expression of our personality, but also of our affiliation to social, political, religious or cultural communities. We use hairstyles to communicate, optimise and conceal a part of our identity, to set ourselves apart or fit into a collective, and thus to send out messages – whether intentionally or unintentionally. In the everyday tension between intimacy and public representation, we use our hair to show our individuality, conformity, rebelliousness or solidarity.

The exhibition entitled Grow It, Show It! explores the historical, political and everyday cultural significance of hair through a wide range of historical and contemporary photographs, videos and film clips from art as well as fashion and social media. The comprehensive exhibition shows that hair is always a carrier of information. The way we wear our hair is not only determined by the pursuit of beauty ideals, but has always been politically and socially charged as an identity-forming feature, a ritual symbol of power, a spiritual material and a communicator of social status.

In its historical and popular science dimension, the exhibition explores the question of how representations of hair at the interface of art, fashion and advertising photography are not only the subject of the beauty industry, but also of queer-feminist, body-political and post-colonial discourses. At the same time, the exhibits dating from the 19th century to the present day shed light on the ways in which images of hair have consolidated and defined trends over the course of time.

With works of:
Hoda Afshar, Laura Aguilar, Diane Arbus, Ellen Auerbach, AWA: la revue de la femme noire, BALAM, Jürgen Baldiga, Barber Turko, Carina Brandes, BRAVO, Nakeya Brown, Tessica Brown, Julia Margaret Cameron, Jim Carrey, Chaumont–Zaerpour, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Rineke Dijkstra, Juan Pablo Echeverri, Anna Ehrenstein, Lotte Errell, Jason Evans, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Samuel Fosso, Pippa Garner, André Gelpke, Weronika Gęsicka, Camilo Godoy, Nan Goldin, Ulrich Görlich, Henriette Grindat, Carola von Groddeck, F. C. Gundlach, Johann Hinrich W. Hamann, Mona Hatoum, Florence Henri, Florian Hetz, David O. Hill & Robert Adamson, Thomas Hoepker, Ewald Hoinkis, Peter Hujar, Graciela Iturbide, Lebohang Kganye, Jens Klein, Peter Knapp, Herlinde Koelbl, Paul Kooiker, Anouk Kruithof, Andreas Langfeld, Alwin Lay, Zoe Leonard, Madame d’Ora, Mahmoud Manaa, Ana Mendieta, Sabelo Mlangeni, Suffo Moncloa, Marge Monko, Thandiwe Muriu, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Emmanuel Ndefo, Helmut Newton, Satomi Nihongi, Nicholas Nixon, Fred Odede, Bubu Ogisi, Mobolaji Ogunrosoye, J. D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, Ulrike Ottinger, Helga Paris, Doris Quarella, Rebecca Racine Ramershoven, Alfred A. Rau, Eugene Richards, ringl + pit, Roxana Rios, Torbjørn Rødland, Thomas Ruff, RuPaul, August Sander, Viviane Sassen, Max Scheler, Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, Lorna Simpson, Slavs and Tatars, Annegret Soltau, John Stezaker, Tabboo!, Hank Willis Thomas, Wolfgang Tillmans, Marie Tomanova, Tunga, Danielle Udogaranya (Ebonix), Dorothea von der Osten, William Wegman, Tom Wood, Yatreda, Leyla Yenirce, Sheung Yiu.

Upcoming Solo Shows:

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 archivesphotographs, 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.