History Lesson KEEPING HOPE ALIVE Or how Hujar helps me keep hope alive + real history of 1st night of Stonewall rebellion

 KEEPING HOPE ALIVE:  In these days of chaos and darkness, I will share a few things over the next few days that make me smile and help keep open my heart. Yes, my life refracts my history, the places, and the events that have shaped me and impact culture and politics in the world I have existed in from my earliest youth until today. But the deepest meaning I have,I hope,is being a queer hippie at heart full of gay spirit. A radical fairy who lives in the real external world which nurtures the spirit of love, compassion and community that builds solidarity in a natural rhythm that fuels my heart .. not easy ..but the appreciation of beauty such as in this Peter Hujar image is one of the ways I try to stay balanced.

Blessed be we say! (Note: not religion based, but spirit manifest)

PETER HUJAR: This is an image from the Peter Hujar show at The Morgan Library & Museum in NYC ( it closes on May 20^th and opens at the Berkeley Museum July 11^th through November 13^th). Peter was my lover for 3 1/2 years at a critical artistic moment in his life. I am very happy that the Morgan's Photography Curator, Joel Smith, has brought forward Peter Hujar. While I, because of my personal relationship with Peter and my involvement in the culture Peter's work is immersed in, have different insights and would have made some different choices,  I highly recommend you see the Hujar show before it moves to the Berkeley Art Museum.

It is one thing to look at photography online and a totally, I think, different experience encountering an image directly. In particular with Hujar's work this I believe to be essential. 
I suggest you take the time to really absorb the multiple layers of a Hujar image. While there may be a certain frisson that happens when encountering a room full of, mostly dead, queer, pop culture icons that dominate the curator's selection, I suggest strongly you spend quality time with each of the images. The reward will be that you will see not just the surface but the multiple layers of humanity, empathy, personal statement, and communication between the subject and the photographer. Elsewhere I will speak of what I know about Peter's practice, but here  I repeat,  you will in doing so experience the work first before distancing oneself from the aesthetic conversation that the encounter can give to you before the academic analysis of intent. 

One of the biggest disappointments for me of the Mogan Hujar show is the stripping of a photo that Peter did for me when the COME OUt cell of GLF decided we wanted to do a recruitment poster for GLF.   I organized the shoot with Peter.

I had asked Joel to include the poster next to the stripped image he had selected of people running in the street and to identify the brave women and men running, smiling and happy in the street. Brave because there was no legal protection for lesbian and gay people in the workplace etc. In fact to have homosexual sex was against the law. 

The photo was taken by Peter in a location he selected in what was then a part of Little Italy where mostly manufacturing building existed.   Later these buildings became artist lofts and the area renamed SOHO. Because of lighting etc, he later superimposed the running image on a location close to a loft we had on 16th street at Union Square. 
The story of who and why these people were in the picture and why they are all white is a story of the reality of racism and dual oppression. They all self-selected to be in the photo. Neither Peter or I excluded anyone who wanted to be in the photo.

Peter and I were lovers when the Stonewall Rebellion took place. 
By happenstance, I was on my way home that night from work at CBS/Columbia Records. At 10:30 P.M. I found myself in front of a sleazy gay bar around the corner from where I still live. I did not frequent the Stonewall Inn,  I was standing in front because as I entered the street from the subway and rounded the corner on to Christopher Street on my way home. I saw a police car parked in front of the Stonewall Inn, .Like any good radical of the '60's, (I had been involved in the Anti-war movement as an openly gay man and had been a co-founder ot the YIPPIES)  I went to see what was happening. I know what actually took place that might because I was in front of the Bar from 10:30 until the streets were re-opened to traffic around 12:15 P.M..

Around that time a group of 7 gay men met at the corner of Waverly and Waverly (yes!). It included Michael Brown, who later became with me one of the people to sit in at the Bakery on 13th street that we finally won from the City for a Lesbian and Gay Center in New York City, (rip-aids), Marty Robinson, my ex-boyfriend and a member of Mattachine's youth group. Marty became a founding member of GLF and later Gay Activist Alliance, (rip-aids), Mark Segal, who would form the Gay Youth cell in GLF and gay hippie and anarchist printer Ralph Hall (rip-aids). We decided to continue this moment the following night. We collectively organized to get the word out. Remember this was prior to cell phones, texting and the Internet etc. We succeded

What happened in the streets is for me the spark of rebellion that changed history forever everywhere for same-sex loving people.  It was not a celebration of another police raid on a gay bar, It was a rebellion against oppression both external and internal. 

STONEWALL  was NOT a riot. Stonewall was a REBELLION.! (WHEW!)
Note: when I use the word “beauty” I am not referring to “pretty” or “decorative.” I intend to be inclusive of empathy, humanity and visual excitement, I include the possibility of horror and shock as a component of beauty...when executed as an intentional aesthetic choice.

jim fouratt May 11, 2018 

I am also including  few images in color that apparently Joel did not have access to or thought were not representative of the Hujar he was curating

Vince Aletti and I on the beach on Fire Island.on a windy day.. that is a dried piece of seaweed I found in my hand, I was reading "Two Serious Ladies" by Jane Bowles and had it with me ...Peter always referred to this photo as "Two Serious Ladies."  

I just like this photo of me and Vince. We were close back then..He was a writer at RAT an alternative newspaper. I thought Vince was a brilliant short story writer.   I introduced him to Peter. They lived across the street from each other for years and Peter introduced him to the art of photography. They were best friends until Peter died.

Another fire Island trip when Peter and I stayed at Sam' Green's house in Ocklyville just past the Sunken Forest.  Sam's other guest was Greta Garbo and companion. (!)