Portraits in Life and Death Peter Hujar HUJAR - Introduction by Susan Sontag. Foreword by Benjamin Moser

HUJAR - Introduction by Susan Sontag. Foreword by Benjamin Moser

ISBN 10: 1324092173 / ISBN 13: 9781324092179

Published by Liveright, 2024

About this Item

Portraits in Life and Death Peter Hujar In englischer Sprache. pages.

Seller Inventory # BN385240

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Portraits in Life and Death Peter Hujar HUJAR - Introduction by Susan Sontag. Foreword by Benjamin Moser
• Publisher: Liveright
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1324092173
• ISBN 13: 9781324092179
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: gut
• Weight: 2000 grams

About this title

Synopsis

A new edition of the cult classic photography book by the legendary Peter Hujar.

The Strategist (nymag.com) • Best Christmas Gifts Under $200
Frieze • 2024 Gift Guide: "[Finally] reissued by Liveright... remind[s] fans of what makes [Hujar] such a singular and original American artist."

“I am moved by the purity of [Hujar’s] intentions.... These memento mori can exorcise morbidity as effectively as they evoke its sweet poetry and its panic.” ―Susan Sontag

Portraits in Life and Death is the only book of photographs published by Peter Hujar during his lifetime. The twenty-nine portraits of creative people―ranging from William Burroughs, Susan Sontag, and John Waters to Larry Ree, founder of the Trocadero Gloxinia Ballet Company, and T.C. (whose identity is unclear)―possess a haunting beauty and degree of psychological examination that is both offbeat and riveting. Following the portraits come eleven images that can only be described as devastating: pictures of semi-preserved, clothed bodies of nineteenth-century Sicilians found in the arid catacombs beneath a church in Palermo.

There is no necessary connection in the photographs themselves or between the two sections of the book, yet the pictorial progression from life to death is an emblem of the journey we all take. The living subjects seem to be meditating on the mortality that is limned with such profound effect in the catacomb pictures. In different ways, both groups of images speak to the basic fears and emotions that we carry with us, somewhere beyond our consciousness. After viewing this extraordinary book, it is almost impossible not to make those connections and interpretations or be moved by Hujar’s consistent ability to convey what appears to be the inner spirit of his subjects.

Even so, an air of nonchalance, even gaiety, hovers over the photographs. The book is odd, oblique, sometimes opaque, and certainly deeply felt; but it sticks to the mind like a burr. It will be noticed. Once seen, it cannot be forgotten.

41 black-and-white photographs

About the Authors

Peter Hujar was a photographer best known for his intimate portrait work, a legendary figure in New York’s downtown subculture of the 1970s and 80s. He was born in 1934 in Trenton, New Jersey, and died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1987.

Benjamin Moser was born in Houston, Texas, and lives in Utrecht. He is the author of Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector, and for Sontag: Her Life and Work, he won the Pulitzer Prize.