Queerguru hopes that the extraordinary queer photographer PETER HUJAR is looking down from wherever he is now, as his work received only marginal public recognition during his lifetime, but he has since been recognized as a major American photographer of the 1970s and 80s.   He was an influential artist-activist of the gay liberation movement; in 1969, with his lover, the political activist Jim Fouratt, he witnessed the Stonewall riots in the West Village. At the urging of Fouratt, he documented the first gay liberation march (June 28, 1970), and took the now somewhat ironic photo “Come out!!” for the Gay Liberation Front. After their break-up at the end of the year, he had to move into his studio (on 10 East 23rd St) until mid-1972, and in the spring of 1973 he moved into a loft formerly occupied by Jackie Curtis above the Eden Theater in the East Village. Hujar transformed the space in such a way that he could live and work there for the rest of his life.

Now his life is the subject of the latest movie from the acclaimed queer filmmaker IRA SACHS whose own life was the basis for his Teddy Award-winning Keep The Lights ON.  It reunites Sachs with Ben Whishaw  (they made Passages together in 2023)  and the film spotlights an important figure from New York’s cultural scene in the 1970s and 80s. As well as photographing the likes of Ginsberg, Hujar photographed a variety of subjects, including male nudes. Inspired by George Platt Lynes’s work, Hujar was a contemporary of Robert Mapplethorpe.

Wishaw is a multi-award-winning British actor whose haul to date includes three British Academy Television Awards, two Emmy Awards , and a Golden Globe. What is remarkable about his successful career is the sheer variety of work in which he played gay (Lilting, London Spy, Quuers etc.) then big budget as he played Q in James Bond movies, and mainstream such as Paddington Bear, Mary Poppins2 and David Copperfield.