Search results for ""Author Peter Hujar""

A legendary musician’s intimate vision of a great photographer’s profound, exquisitely somber oeuvre Bringing together the sensibilities of two remarkable artists, Peter Hujar Curated by Elton John provides striking proof of how one artist’s eye can shed light on another. Though known worldwide as one of the most revered performers of our era, Elton John is also a seasoned collector of photographs, with an acute and personal understanding of Hujar’s achievement. Through a selection of 50 photographs, the book presents a wide-ranging survey of Hujar's career. John writes: “Hujar's humanity, depth and sensual insights aren't for everyone, and don't need to be, but once his pictures get into your bloodstream they are impossible to shake.” The publication includes works spanning nearly two decades, featuring portraits of Hujar's eclectic circle of friends, his landmark nudes, atmospheric landscapes, portraits of performers (Stevie Wonder, Peggy Lee and Edgar Winter) and a moving image of the artist with his mother. Peter Hujar (1934–87) was born in Trenton, New Jersey and moved to Manhattan to work in the magazine, advertising and fashion industries. He documented the vibrant cultural scene in downtown New York throughout the 1970s and 1980s, photographing artists, musicians, writers and performers. Hujar died of AIDS in 1987. Elton John (born 1947) is one of the most enduringly successful solo artists of all time. In 1992 he founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which funds programs to end the AIDS epidemic. Since the 1990s he has avidly collected photography. In 2016, Tate Modern organized the exhibition The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection.

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The Shabbiness of Beauty is a visual dialogue that crosses generational divides with the easy intimacy of a late-night phone call. Multidisciplinary artist Moyra Davey delved into Peter Hujar’s archives and emerged mainly with little-known, scarcely seen images. In response to these, Davey created her own images that draw out an idiosyncratic selection of shared subjects. Side by side, the powerfully composed images admire, tease, and enhance one another in the manner of fierce friends, forming a visual exploration of physicality and sexuality that crackles with wit, tenderness, and perspicacity. Spiritually anchored in New York City – even as they range out to rural corners of Quebec and Pennsylvania – these images crystallise tensions between city and country, human and animal. Nudes pose with unruly chickens; human bodies are abstracted toward topography; seascapes and urban landscapes share the same tremulous plasticity. These continuities are punctuated by stark differences of approach: Davey’s self-aware postmodernism against Hujar’s humanism and embrace of darkroom manipulation. The rich dialogue between these photographs is personal and angular, ultimately offering an illuminating reintroduction to each celebrated artist through communion with the other’s work.

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