THE MORGAN PRESENTS THE FIRST FULL-SCALE RETROSPECTIVE

OF THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF PETER HUJAR

Peter Hujar: Speed of Life

January 26 through May 20, 2018

Boy on Raft, 1978, gelatin silver print, purchased on The Charina Endowment Fund, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2013.108:1.97. © Peter Hujar Archive, LLC, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

New York, NY, December 5, 2017 — The life and art of Peter Hujar (1934–1987) were rooted in downtown New York. Private by nature, combative in manner, well-read, and widely connected, Hujar inhabited a world of avant-garde dance, music, art, and drag performance. His mature career paralleled the public unfolding of gay life between the Stonewall uprising in 1969 and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. 

In his loft studio in the East Village, Hujar focused on those who followed their creative instincts and shunned mainstream success. He made, in his words, “uncomplicated, direct photographs of complicated and difficult subjects,” immortalizing moments, individuals, and subcultures passing at the speed of life.  

Peter Hujar: Speed of Life—on view at the Morgan from January 26 through May 20—presents one hundred and forty photographs by this enormously important and influential artist. Drawn from the extensive holdings of his work at the Morgan and from nine other collections, the show and its catalog follow Hujar from his beginnings in the mid-1950s to his central role in the East Village art scene three decades later. The catalog features full-page reproductions of one hundred and sixty photographs, essays by curator Joel Smith, Philip Gefter, and Steve Turtell, and the first fully researched chronology, exhibition history, and bibliography to be published on Hujar.

The exhibition was organized by the Morgan and Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid. After opening at Fundación MAPFRE in Barcelona, Spain, it traveled to the Fotomuseum, The Hague, the Netherlands. Following its Morgan showing, it will be exhibited at the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive later in 2018.  

“Peter Hujar published only one monograph in his lifetime and did not have his first solo gallery show until he was forty-two,” said Colin B. Bailey, director of the Morgan Library & Museum. “Yet, today, critical appreciation of the full scope of his work is at an all-time high. Best known for the searching intimacy of his photographic portraits, he also distinctively explored landscapes, architecture, and the nocturnal city in works of stark beauty. The downtown New York he captured is a small, intensely creative world that no longer exists, which helps explain why his work is so resonant for young artists today. The Morgan is delighted to present the first in-depth look at this remarkable artist.”