When viewing pieces like, San Gennaro (1976), Girl in My Hallway (1976), and Wreck (1980) the feelings of loneliness and sadness are so evident. These images offer us the opportunity to see exactly how much of a voyeur Hujar actually was. In other words, the events leading up to the images in the photos have already happened, and Hujar is there to view the end result completely detached from any involvement in their creation. None the less despite Hujar propensity to go chasing shadows in the dark, he more often than not had direct contact with his subjects such as in the photographs, Brintzenhofe Putting on Make-Up (1982) and DOA Halloween (1979). In these two photographs, be it positive or not, Hujar captures the moments as they happened. Throughout the whole exhibition, Hujar experiments with the role of participant and spectator.

Playing with the role of participator and spectator is part of his homosexual photographic images as well. Besides a few exceptions, Hujar captures scenes of gay men in sexual situations that cast the darkest light on the sexual freedom they enjoyed before AIDS. It is widely known that Hujar was a gay man himself, who professed (on his death bed) to having have slept with over thousand men, and allegedly did it only to be able to connect with others. If this bit of information is true that it is very telling about Hujar’s vulnerability in concerns to his relationships with men, which apparently he was incapable of having. Understanding this enables us to see the true brilliance of Hujar. Because of his issues with his sexuality, and how he expresses this in his art, he crosses over the line of being an objective viewer or momentary participant and completely exposes himself to us. This is what art is truly about. He crosses the bridge between viewer and artist and makes a connection that is utterly human and pure. Hujar shares with us in his gay photographs what he saw gay life as. Here in lay the true importance of Peter Hujar.

An empathetic mind will take a moment to picture ones self wandering the cold and lonely streets of NYC, searching for meaning that seems ever elusive. I would venture to guess that many of us feel or have felt that same sense of despair as Peter Hujar shares with us. Perhaps on higher level there is another lesson Hujar offers us, that being compassion.

Matthew Marks Gallery
523 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011 | 212 243-0200
www.matthewmarks.com