Peter Hujar – ‘Eyes Open in the Dark’

” By rights, Peter Hujar should be far more famous than he is.

Born in New Jersey in 1934, the photographer was a contemporary of Robert Mapplethorpe and Nan Goldin, and a close friend and sometime lover of Paul Thek and David Wojnarowicz. He rubbed shoulders with countless artists and literary luminaries, photographing everyone from Andy Warhol, Susan Sontag and Wiliam S. Burroughs to Greer Langton, John Waters and Cookie Mueller. Pretty much anyone notable in the thriving art scene of downtown Manhattan in the 1970s and ’80s was acquainted with Hujar. “

“This exhibition is a timely one, coinciding with the imminent portrayal of the artist on the big screen in Peter Hujar’s Day, an Ira Sachs-directed two-hander based on a book by Hujar’s friend Linda Rosenkrantz. Starring Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall, the film got great reviews when it premiered at Sundance in January, and will receive a wider release later this year. The exhibition’s co-curator, art critic John Douglas Millar, is also hard at work on a forthcoming biography that will be published through the prestigious imprint Fitzcarraldo Editions. 

A mere four decades after his death, it seems that Hujar is finally getting his dues as a major force in 20th-century photography.” – Rosie Hewitson