From the 1960s to the early '80s, Peter Hujar was an iconic presence in New York’s downtown scene.

His celebrated portraits capture the city’s queer pantheon of artists and drag performers, poets and writers, celebrities and deadbeats, strangers and lovers, acquaintances and friends. From East Village icons Greer Lankton and Ethyl Eichelberger to downtown intellectuals Susan Sontag and Fran Lebowitz, from Warhol superstars to legendary artists like Paul Thek and David Wojnarowicz, this exhibition brings together Hujar’s penetrating portraits in a love letter to his city and community.

Cruising Utopia traces the horizons of Hujar’s expansive body of work, encompassing intimate studio portraits, street photography, and striking images of the city itself. Across nighttime streetscapes, desolate parking lots, and crumbling piers peopled with half-naked bodies, Hujar photographed the margins of public space, capturing queer intimacy as it flourished in the post-Stonewall era of the '70s and early ‘80s. Cruising the city through his camera’s viewfinder, he navigated its porous networks of erogenous utopias, photographing a fabulous and often infamous cast of underground elites who defined New York City’s vibrant counterculture in the decade before AIDS.

Please copy and paste the following link for access to our Online Viewing Rooms: https://www.pacegallery.com/online-exhibitions/peter-hujar/

To inquire about works by Peter Hujar, please email [email protected].