Exhibitions

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Mendes Wood DM is pleased to present American photographer Peter Hujar’s first solo exhibition in Brazil. Through his unfiltered approach, Hujar documented the avant-garde group of New York-based artists, writers, and musicians who defined the downtown scene in the 1970s and 80s.

Peter Hujar’s early life began in rural New Jersey, where he was raised by Ukrainian immigrant grandparents. However, his mother, who worked in Lower Manhattan, brought him to live in New York City at the age of eleven. There, Hujar immersed himself in the galleries of Greenwich Village and art institutions like The Museum of Modern Art. Influenced by Lisette Model’s unfiltered street photography – particularly her intimate urban portraits – Hujar joined a masterclass led by photographer Richard Avedon and art director Marvin Israel in 1967, earning admiration from Avedon while seeing his photography flourish.

The artist’s work affirms an almost non-documentation of the scene of his time, preferring a theatrical character, but one without any great ambitions toward fiction. Hujar mastered the art of hiding and revealing, from the light and composition of the images to the personalities portrayed. The subtle interplay of shadows and poses plays tricks with the human notion of time, always limited to earthly existence. Hujar portrays the lives of extraordinary people while his photographic idiom embodies silence, the art of the secret. “In a way, he was famous. But it was a very odd fame. I am tempted to call it a kind of secret fame. His reputation was simultaneously widespread and covered; at once powerful and almost invisible,” said the writer Stephen Koch of Hujar.

The exhibition revolves around defining portraits: Candy Darling on her deathbed and Ethyl Eichelberger as Medea. Darling, an American actress and iconic Warhol Superstar, is remembered for her roles in Warhol’s films like “Flesh” (1968) and “Women in Revolt” (1971), and as a muse for The Velvet Underground. In the vibrant East Village scene of the 1980s, Ethyl Eichelberger gained recognition for his dynamic solo performances and played a pivotal role. Over nearly two decades, he creatively spearheaded thirty-two eccentric plays, contributing as a writer, producer, stage director, and performer, portraying remarkable figures across various domains. Both figures embodied roles impacting culture over the past forty years. Hujar later wrote about Candy’s photoshoot, describing her as “playing every death scene from every movie.”

In a time when images are consumed and trivialized by the excesses of our era, Hujar’s work takes on an even greater importance, highlighting not only quality and technique but also intentions and reflections on time, life, and, no less significantly, the notion of gesture and its responsibilities within the arts.