Vince Aletti once wrote that Peter Hujar 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’t 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—downtown New York in the 1970s and 80s—Hujar’s black and white images embody a timeless humanism. They are tender, not tempestuous, and are among the best portraits taken in the twentieth century.
“Peter Hujar – Eyes Open in the Dark” at London’s Raven Row gallery is the first exhibition to cover all of Hujar’s later work. Curated by Hujar’s biographer, John Douglas Millar, along with Hujar’s close friend Gary Schneider and Raven Row director Alex Sainsbury, the exhibition displays Hujar’s 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’s photographs of New York have none of the chaos that defines a Meyerowitz or Gilden image. His photographs of the skyscrapers of Sixth Avenue are haunting in their imposing emptiness; it’s as though the city is populated only by steel, not people.
There are several images that clearly ground Hujar in the socio-political environment of 1970s New York—a post-Stonewall city that carried the uncomfortable burden of sexual emancipation as the AIDS crisis slowly entrenched itself among the population. One of Hujar’s 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’s 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 “Witness: Against our Vanishing” in 1989. The show was organized by Nan Goldin and was curated to express the loss and anger over official inaction towards the AIDS epidemic. But Hujar’s Hudson images aren’t 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.
But it’s Hujar’s portraits that define the show. There are a few famous faces in the downstairs rooms: Susan Sontag, Fran Lebowitz and Candy Darling, all of whom are lying in or on a bed. Other subjects include William Burroughs and John Waters. 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 ‘celebrity’ studies.
However, the most intriguing and lasting images are not of celebrities but of Hujar’s friends and lovers. There are several of his lover David Wojnarowicz, who was also to die of AIDS. Hujar’s 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 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’s work) but are distinct in their marriage of social commentary and homoerotic longing.
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.
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’s lens. Simply put, the exhibition is one of London’s finest in recent years.
“Peter Hujar – Eyes Open in the Dark” is at London’s Raven Row gallery through April 6, 2025.
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