ART BEAT

PHOTOS: A Trip Back To The Heady, Erotic Heyday Of The New York City Piers

Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York’s premier queer-art gallery, unveils its provocative new exhibit, “The Piers: Art and Sex along the NY Waterfront,” this week. The show, featuring more than 70 images curated by Jonathan Weinberg and Darren Jones, is the first to focus on the gay subculture that emerged along the Hudson River docks in the 1970s.

After years of persecution in the 1950s and ’60s, the counterculture revolution of the summer of ’69 inspired a sexual liberation within the gay community.  Barren and secluded, the crumbling piers became a haven for public nudity and sexual exchange, as captured by Vito Acconci, Gordon Matta-Clark, David Wojnarowicz, Leonard Fink and other photographers whose work will be on display.

Click through for more images from “The Piers: Art and Sex along the NY Waterfront

 

“The Piers” is on display at the Leslie-Lohman Museum from April 4 to May 10. Photos courtesy of the Leslie-Lohman Museum.

 

“Dockside Interview, 1977,” Arthur Tress

“David Wojnarowicz in front of Pier 46,” Leonard Fink

“En Masse Sunners seen from Pier 45, 1982,” Frank Hallam

“Pier 34-1215 Luis Frangella Mural, Pier 34, 1983,” Andreas Sterzing

“Mike Nomad, West Side Highway, 1980,” Stanley Stellar

“Sunbathing on the Edge, Pier 52, 1977,” Shelley Seccombe

“Fire on Pier 46 (Black Smoke and WTC), 1980,” Shelley Seccombe

“Days End, 1975,” Leonard Fink

 “Sunners, Pier 51, 1978,” Frank Hallam

 “Pier 46 Tava 10-20-79,” Frank Hallam

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