{"id":2477,"date":"2025-03-25T20:53:46","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T20:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/25\/closing-soon-peter-hujar-eyes-open-in-the-dark-at-raven-row\/"},"modified":"2025-03-25T20:53:46","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T20:53:46","slug":"closing-soon-peter-hujar-eyes-open-in-the-dark-at-raven-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/25\/closing-soon-peter-hujar-eyes-open-in-the-dark-at-raven-row\/","title":{"rendered":"Closing Soon: \u201cPeter Hujar \u2013 Eyes Open in the Dark\u201d at Raven Row"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/a>
Peter Hujar, Person in Veil (Backstage, The Life & Times of Joseph Stalin, Brooklyn Academy of Music)<\/em>, 1973. \u00a9 2025 the Peter Hujar Archive \/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY, DACS London, Pace Gallery, NY, Fraenkel Gallery, SF, Maureen Paley, London, and Mai 36 Galerie, Zurich<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Vince Aletti<\/a> once wrote that Peter Hujar<\/a> was the angriest person he knew. Hujar was prone to outbursts, harboring a temper that cost him friends and commissions in the art world. But you wouldn\u2019t guess that from looking at his photographs. Throughout all his work, Hujar, who died from AIDS-related pneumonia in 1987, favored carefully composed, lovingly framed compositions. Though his work speaks of a clear time and place\u2014downtown New York in the 1970s and 80s\u2014Hujar\u2019s black and white images embody a timeless humanism. They are tender, not tempestuous, and are among the best portraits taken in the twentieth century.<\/p>\n

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\"A\"A<\/a>
Peter Hujar, White Turkey, Pennsylvania<\/em>, 1985. \u00a9 2025 the Peter Hujar Archive \/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY, DACS London, Pace Gallery, NY, Fraenkel Gallery, SF, Maureen Paley, London, and Mai 36 Galerie, Zurich<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cPeter Hujar \u2013 Eyes Open in the Dark\u201d at London\u2019s Raven Row gallery is the first exhibition to cover all of Hujar\u2019s later work. Curated by Hujar\u2019s biographer, John Douglas Millar<\/a>, along with Hujar\u2019s close friend Gary Schneider<\/a> and Raven Row director Alex Sainsbury<\/a>, the exhibition displays Hujar\u2019s large range of interests. There are pictures of animals: a dog, a turkey, a cow, all given the same dignity and prominence as any homosapien sitter. There are urban landscapes. Hujar\u2019s photographs of New York have none of the chaos that defines a Meyerowitz<\/a> or Gilden<\/a> image. His photographs of the skyscrapers of Sixth Avenue are haunting in their imposing emptiness; it\u2019s as though the city is populated only by steel, not people.<\/p>\n

\"A\"A<\/a>
Peter Hujar, Person in Veil (Backstage, The Life & Times of Joseph Stalin, Brooklyn Academy of Music)<\/em>, 1973. \u00a9 2025 the Peter Hujar Archive \/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY, DACS London, Pace Gallery, NY, Fraenkel Gallery, SF, Maureen Paley, London, and Mai 36 Galerie, Zurich<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are several images that clearly ground Hujar in the socio-political environment of 1970s New York\u2014a post-Stonewall city that carried the uncomfortable burden of sexual emancipation as the AIDS crisis slowly entrenched itself among the population. One of Hujar\u2019s photographs was reproduced as a poster for the Gay Liberation Front in 1970, a recruitment poster for the first-ever gay pride march. But Hujar\u2019s images over time represent the move away from sexual freedom to meditations on loss, as thousands of gay men died whilst the government failed to act. Most moving are a series of images of the Hudson River, which were posthumously included in the group show \u201cWitness: Against our Vanishing\u201d in 1989. The show was organized by Nan Goldin<\/a> and was curated to express the loss and anger over official inaction towards the AIDS epidemic. But Hujar\u2019s Hudson images aren\u2019t angry: looking at them in the context after his death, they take on a reflective sadness; the lapping waves an invitation to mourn and reflect. They are among the most beautiful in the exhibition.<\/p>\n

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SEE ALSO: <\/i><\/b>Inside the Complicated World of Studio Assistants<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But it\u2019s Hujar\u2019s portraits that define the show. There are a few famous faces in the downstairs rooms: Susan Sontag<\/a>, Fran Lebowitz<\/a> and Candy Darling<\/a>, all of whom are lying in or on a bed. Other subjects include William Burroughs<\/a> and John Waters<\/a>. Despite being relatively unknown among the public, Hujar was certainly a popular figure in the creative scene in 1970s New York, though his photographs are far too intimate to be classed as \u2018celebrity\u2019 studies.<\/p>\n

\"A\"A<\/a>
Peter Hujar, Self-Portrait<\/em>, 1980. \u00a9 2025 the Peter Hujar Archive \/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY, DACS London, Pace Gallery, NY, Fraenkel Gallery, SF, Maureen Paley, London, and Mai 36 Galerie, Zurich<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, the most intriguing and lasting images are not of celebrities but of Hujar\u2019s friends and lovers. There are several of his lover David Wojnarowicz, who was also to die of AIDS. Hujar\u2019s semi-nude self-portraits are also a study of restraint. The closest we get to confrontational is a photograph of dancer Bruce de Sainte Croix<\/a> holding his erection, but even this image is a beautiful study of form and desire rather than aggressive. These photographs balance formal simplicity with subjective intrigue in ways that echo Avedon (who was a serious collector of Hujar\u2019s work) but are distinct in their marriage of social commentary and homoerotic longing.<\/p>\n

\"A\"A<\/a>
Peter Hujar, Richie Gallo (Backstage, The Life & Times of Joseph Stalin, Brooklyn Academy of Music)<\/em>, 1973. \u00a9 2025 the Peter Hujar Archive \/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY, DACS London, Pace Gallery, NY, Fraenkel Gallery, SF, Maureen Paley, London, and Mai 36 Galerie, Zurich<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Peter Hujar died on Thanksgiving in 1987. Three of the most memorable images were not taken by Hujar but by Wojnarowicz. They show Hujar himself just after his death. His gaunt, lifeless face is all the more saddening when compared to the liveliness of his subjects. Even without these death images, grief hangs over the collection; the gay scene of 1970s\/80s New York will always be, to some degree, inseparable from the context of AIDS. Each image of pleasure is also tinged with tragedy waiting around the corner.<\/p>\n

Yet the images are simply irresistible. They are curated so that disparate photographs are bundled like a late-night party where one finds all sorts of characters mingling together. Bodies choreographed into abstract shapes are hung over empty corridors of cruising spots. Each photograph invites contemplation and repeated viewings. And then there are the faces: some mischievous, some melancholy, all rendered beautiful in their own way through Hujar\u2019s lens. Simply put, the exhibition is one of London\u2019s finest in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/b>Peter Hujar \u2013 Eyes Open in the Dark<\/b><\/a>\u201d is at London\u2019s Raven Row gallery through April 6, 2025.<\/b><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Don\u2019t<\/p><\/div>\n