Unicorns.

[unusualmusic_lj_archive]

Alvin Baltrop

At the age of 26, Alvin Baltrop began photographing what was going on at Manhattan's West Side piers. The area, full of abandoned warehouses and dilapidated industrial piers, became a temporary home for queer teenage runaways and a cruising spot for gay men. It was a place that was under the radar. People went there to do drugs, muggings were common and so, unfortunately, were rape, murder and suicide. Baltrop's camera captured gay public sex, the public art of muralist Tava, various unknown graffiti artists, as well as pieces by David Wojnarowicz, who also visited the piers. Baltrop documented homelessness, death and the stark decay of run-down warehouses with depth and grace.

Of course, not everyone saw it that way. The mainstream art world, even the gay portion of it, couldn't see the value in Baltrop's work. Hostile reactions to his pictures were common. One curator he showed his portfolio to likened Baltrop to a sewer rat because of the content of his photos. Most art gallery owners and academic art critics could only see dirty homeless fags fucking in an abandoned warehouse, and stopped there.

According to his close friend and assistant, Randal Wilcox, gay art galleries were the most unreceptive to the late photographer's work.

"Al Baltrop endured constant racism from gay curators, gallery owners and other members of the 'gay community' until his death,” said Wilcox. “Many of these people doubted that Baltrop shot his own photographs; some implied or directly told him that he stole the work of a white photographer. Other people who were willing to accept the photographs treated Al as though he was an idiot savant. Other people stole photographs from him."[you all remember that Hollywood article we were discussing?]

It didn't take long for Baltrop to get the picture. He subsequently withdrew from the art world and focused more of his energy on photography. As a result of his experiences, his work received very little attention during his lifetime. He had a few small shows in New York, one at the Glines, a gay non-profit, and another exhibit at the East Village gay bar where he sometimes worked as a bouncer.

After his death, his work received a bit more attention. Since 2004, his work has been show internationally. In February 20008, ARTFORUM published an article on Baltrop including several reprints of his photographs. Most recently, the Whitney agreed to purchase one of his photographs for their permanent collection.MORE

Comments

[abydosangel.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this &hearts

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

I live to serve:)

[buria-q.livejournal.com]

thank you so much for this

[buria-q.livejournal.com]

also, i'm doing a research paper on the battle for the pier between queer youth of color, residents and developers. and of course most of the old white gay men who live there aren't allies any more than any other resident - i thought it was interesting that one was quoted to say that people were straight-laced/law-abiding or whatever when he used to hang out there (referring to the all the policing and noise), which is clearly such a lie when you look at all these pics and see how it's been a broken down place with a lot of issues where homeless queers have gone to since at least the 70s. the special part was where he claimed "we won you stonewall, you owe us" and implied that the black/brown kids who hang out there now are the undeserving beneficiaries. yeah, that's right, gay white men spearheaded stonewall. please.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

oh god. The privilege dripping from that statement makes me so fucking ill. To say nothing of the history twisting. We are so gonna have to find ways to own the history and not let it get fucked up, for the survival as well as truth and justice (which is not particularly the American way re: certain groups of ppl, apparently)Wow, that research paper sounds fantastic! I am thinking about your question, by the way, there's something I have to check out before I can answer it.

[buria-q.livejournal.com]

yeah, seriously! some of these articles really got my blood boiling - there was even one resident ranting about how the park guards should be armed so that the kids "get the right idea".

i hope the paper will be fantastic, lol. thanks for getting back to me re: question.

[buria-q.livejournal.com]

also, i want to point that out in the paper. do you know where i could find books/articles on stonewall and race? i checked the libraries of the consortium but maybe my search words are bad or something. I plugged in "stonewall" and "stonewall, race".

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

here

[buria-q.livejournal.com]

oh, thank you so much. snr never fails.