What’s becoming a highly anticipated annual highlight at the Albert Merola Gallery in PTown is their remarkable exhibition of vintage photographs by the late great Peter Hujar. Hujar was an American photographer best known for his black and white portraits. and his work received only marginal public recognition during his lifetime, but he has now been recognized posthumously as a major American photographer of the late-twentieth century.
Back in the late 1960s Hujar quickly developed a reputation as a non-compromising singular artist, much involved with the emerging LGBTQ scene in the city. In 1970 his iconic photograph of people in the street was used as the poster for the newly formed Gay Liberation Front. He was an important figure in the downtown New York art scene of the 1970’s and 80’s, hanging out with, and photographing many iconic personalities of that time and place. It was a heady time of experimentation and exploration and artistic expression. It was a world of hustlers, drag queens, easily available anonymous sex, leather bars, cutting-edge theater productions and of course, the clubs. This was his world, and it provided him with a wealth of material to photograph.
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This marks Hujar’s third one-person show at the gallery, in addition to numerous appearances in curated exhibitions over the years. All of the work in this exhibition are gelatin silver prints that he printed himself. A number of the images are examples of rarely seen work. This Show, as always is a real treat and a great way to celebrate Hujar who so sadly died from AIDS back in 1987 aged 53
Peter Hujar Vintage - Uncomplicated, direct photographs of complicated and difficult subjects http://www.albertmerolagallery.com/424 Commercial Street Provincetown, MA 02657 July 1 - 27, 2022
