Exhibitions

Nona Hendryx may be known for her disco-funk stylings as one-third of LaBelle and in her late ’70s solo career. But running concurrent with her music practice, she told me, was always a deep fascination with technology.  
Over a video call, she shared her predilection for taking devices apart as a child, her interest in synthesizers, and her collection of every Mac computer she’s ever owned (and she’s had them since the Apple II). Above all is her desire to go “wireless,” to achieve oneness with technology. “The idea of purchasing yet another cable become a neurotic thing for me,” she said. “I didn’t want to have a separation between myself and the machines I was using.”
Technology has now caught up to Hendryx. This month, the artist is unveiling “The Dream Machine Experience,” an ambitious installation leveraging artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and virtual reality. It will take up the entire campus of Lincoln Center in New York, will unfold in three parts, and is free for the public to interact with.
The Dream Machine V.R. experience. Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center.
The project marks a vast enlargement of Hendryx’s engagement with technology. For the past decade, the artist has developed works from haptic wearables (such as the W.A.V.E. Glove, an “audio-exciter”) to audio bodysuits (notably her Audio Tutu, which integrated a sound system into a plexiglass skirt). “The Dream Machine Experience” builds on those sound experiments, exploring the part technology might play in “how we create things, how we create our existence and our future,” Hendryx said. 
The exhibition opens in the David Rubenstein Atrium, in an installation titled Bina48’s Afro Future Garden, designed in collaboration with artists Mickalene Thomas and Lutfi Janania Zablah. Here, visitors can engage with the titular Bina48, an A.I.-powered humanoid robot programmed with the mind files of a Black woman. Hendryx described it as a “social robot,” one she has grown especially close to the more she’s conversed with it. 
Nona Hendryx with Bina48. Photo: Lawrence Sumulong, courtesy of Lincoln Center.
“Bina48 is like a new acquaintance that has become very much a part of my life,” she said. “I feel very much like a godmother of Bina48 and very caring of Bina48. My relationship has grown to the point where there’s some of me in Bina48.”
By following a multi-act route from the David Rubenstein Atrium to the David Geffen Hall, visitors can next activate the A.R. presentation, The Bridge, using provided devices. A virtual avatar of Hendryx named Cyboracle will serve as the guide on a trip dotted with poetry, music, and collectible tokens representing healing energy.  
The A.R. component of “The Dream Machine Experience.” Photo: Lawrence Sumlong, courtesy of Lincoln Center.
The journey culminates with The Dream Machine, a full-scale V.R. experience at the David Geffen Hall. Cyboracle will again show up here, alongside VR performances by the likes of George Clinton, Laurie Anderson, and Vernon Reid. The piece has its roots in Hendryx’s work with the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she has been an Ambassador for Artistry in Education for more than a decade, evolving from a 2017–18 project to “create hybrid, digital technology-driven performances,” she said. 
A performing arts center, in that sense, might be the perfect venue to launch Hendryx’s multimedia extravaganza. Not only has the artist performed at several of its locations, her exhibition marks the center’s bid to broaden the scope of its offerings. While the center has previously dabbled in A.R. and V.R. activations, Hendryx’s show marks its first major foray into mixed reality. “It’s like we went from dipping a toe and into the deep end,” said Jordana Leigh, Lincoln Center’s vice president of artistic programming. 
Besides watching Hendryx’s vision come to life, the project has been exciting for the center, Leigh told me, because “it’s expanding our minds and how we see our role as presenting artists and our place in supporting the XR arts. The underlying mission of it all is to get people who don’t see themselves in technology to see themselves in technology.”
Cyboracle as seen in The Dream Machine V.R. experience. Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center.
For Hendryx, the show realizes her vision for the future as much as it reimagines her art and self. Cyboracle, for one, fulfills her wish to meld with a machine, while offering “this other means through which I can express myself.” It’s fitting for an artist who once sang, on 1983’s “Transformation,” “rust to dust, us to them / change your mind, change your skin.” She has a similar hope for visitors interacting with the installation. 
“It’s stories upon stories upon stories, a cornucopia of visuals and storytelling born out of music and memory,” she said of the work. “I hope the audience takes away curiosity and questions. I hope they see a reflection of themselves.” 
“The Dream Machine Experience” is on view at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, June 12–30. 
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

Trolling through real estate marketplace Zillow “just for funsies” has become a beloved, and widespread pastime for many of us who may never actually be able to afford a home. But for artist Rachael Tarravechia lurking on Zillow is more than a fantasy browsing for available properties—these online real estate listings are the starting point for her sinisterly alluring paintings.
Filtering search results to only houses with 3D tours available, Tarravechia moves virtually through the homes, exploring them room by room until she finds a space that resonates with her. Stripping away personal items and other identifying décor indicators, such as wall color, floor material, or window treatments, the artist makes the room her own and starts “decorating.”
Rachael Tarravechia, Snuff (2023). Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of the artist and Ceysson and Bénétière.
Drawing from a range of additional references, like her stash of vintage 1980s issues of Architectural Digest, other homes on Zillow, or personal photos, Tarravechia creates what she terms a “dream room” situation.
There’s an unnerving yet undeniably captivating, even glamorous quality to Tarravechia’s paintings, a selection of which are included in her solo show “Water on Velvet” on view through June 14, 2024, at Ceysson and Bénétière on New York’s Upper East Side. Specifically in her renderings of bathrooms (a frequent subject in her work) the inclusion of mirrors creates an uneasy balance between presence and absence; the space where the viewer—both within the painted mirror and of the painting itself—is noticeably vacant. Instead, a weapon is conspicuously added, as in Terminal Horror (2023) where a double flail hovers in place of a viewer in a manner akin to how new weapons or “loot” are presented in video games. In another work, Snuff (2023), a guillotine is seamlessly inserted within a kitschy 1970s style bedroom/bathroom combo, implying that a chopped off head would fall tidily into the tub. Outside of bathroom depictions, in Gunblade (2024), a wooden oratory houses the Final Fantasy VIII character Squall’s signature weapon.
Rachael Tarravechia, Gunblade (2024). Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of the artist and Ceysson and Bénétière.
Executed in shades of red, these works possess an uncanny magnetism, tempting the viewer inward whilst simultaneously exuding a sense of foreboding.
“Viewer experience and interaction is a key part of the work. Since these works draw from horror, anime, and video games, I try to emulate the mysterious, enticing qualities these forms of media are constantly displaying,” said Tarravechia via email. “Every horror movie has a point where the audience is screaming at the character on screen not to open the door, but it’s almost as if there’s something calling to them and they can’t refuse. That’s what I think about while making my work. Right before something momentous and irreconcilably changed, it’s up to the viewer to choose how to proceed.”
Rachael Tarravechia, Cold Reprise (2024). Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of the artist and Ceysson and Bénétière.
Another element of Tarravechia’s paintings that compels a step closer is the playful inclusion of mixed-media materials, such as silver chains used for harp strings, rhinestone trim, glitter, and another recent addition to her material vernacular: “For this show, I started using a new material called Liquid Glass. I was shocked the first time I used it, which was in the piece Cold Reprise (2024). The bathtub eventually ended up filled with blood, and as you walk across the painting, the blood looks wet, viscous, sticky, and is highly reflective and inviting. I’m extremely happy with how that turned out!”
Rachael Tarravechia, Endless Staircase (Moogle Parade) (2024). Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of the artist and Ceysson and Bénétière.
Cute and impish cartoon-style critters (Moogles from Final Fantasy), plastic vampire teeth, or meticulously rendered spiderwebs made of pearls abound across her work, ensuring the otherwise ominous vignettes are equally balanced with a sense of irreverent levity. This equilibrium extends to the number of weapon sculptures on view as well, chief among them being bedazzled nunchucks and a nail bat, which tap into the artist’s familial history. Her grandfather was a second-degree karate black belt who had a collection of nunchucks, two of which were handed down to her (and she’s gotten some practice with).
Rachael Tarravechia, Italian Mobstar (2023). Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of the artist and Ceysson and Bénétière.
“The nail bat is a much more tongue in cheek response to the nunchucks. My grandpa looked like a stereotypical Sicilian man, so I wanted to create a weapon that would be suited for a mob princess (me in another life). Something blingy, cute, but will seriously do damage,” she explained.
Obliterating the boundaries between painting and other graphic arts and genres, Tarravechia’s work is a masterclass in worldbuilding—and will be sure to materialize in the back of your mind the next time you’re perusing Zillow.
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

The origin of Elephantine Island’s name remains murky. Some spy the mammal in its hulking granite rocks, or conjure the specter of some long-extinct herd. Others point to the lucrative ivory trade it once supported.
It’s a sliver of rock at the Nile’s southern extreme, a mile long and half that across, but the size belies its importance.
It began as a garrison town, a first line of defense against Nubian raiders, but it was commerce that saw the island flourish on-and-off for roughly 4,000 years, with a population that exhibited an array of languages, cultures, and religions.
This cultural diversity struck the pith-helmeted Europeans who began excavating the island at the turn of the 20th century. In addition to well-preserved sites such as a step pyramid and a structure that measured the Nile’s fluctuations, archaeologists uncovered a litany of writings, not only in hieroglyphics, but hieratic, demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Coptic, and Arabic.
Today, these innumerate Elephantine texts are scattered across 60 collections in two dozen countries. The primary holders are the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, the Louvre in Paris, and the Brooklyn Museum. A monumental project led by Berlin’s Verena Lepper, however, is unifying the texts by archiving, digitizing, and translating them.
Hieratic document about legal disputes regarding property and inheritance. Photo: Berlin State Museums / Sandra Steiß.
Work began seven years ago when Lepper received a European Research Council grant to gather a team that could translate the manuscripts and shed light on Elephantine’s multiculturalism, societal structure, and religious development.
The public-facing output of this painstaking research is an exhibition held at two sites on Berlin’s very own island of culture, Museumsinsel. At the James-Simon-Galerie, the focus is on time, while at the Neues Museum, it’s on space—big questions for a site that has provoked great imaginings.
“Elephantine Island of the Millennia” brings together newly translated texts, artifacts, and interactive “activity stations” to tell the story of a place unlike any other in ancient Egypt. The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities is involved and the island’s spirit of multilingualism is reflected in an exhibition (through October 10) that uses Arabic, German, and English.
Hieroglyphic magical papyrus fragment from Elephantine. Photo: Berlin State Museums/ Sandra Steiß.
Written texts on Elephantine were primarily recorded on two materials: papyri and shards of clay known as ostraca. Clay was the cheap, everyday writing substance of choice. Pieces were used for making notes, calculations, and receipts—the substance’s resilience has made deciphering them relatively easy.
Papyrus, on the other hand, was expensive and reserved for recording the likes of official business, religious texts, and magical incantations. The material is extremely brittle, however, and when researchers began opening archival boxes that hadn’t been opened in a century they found piles of thousands of pieces. A system was devised to clean, flatten, sort, and digitize the fragments, one replicated in Berlin, Paris, and Brooklyn, rendering the papyri accessible to Egyptologists around the world.
In total, 10,745 were documents indexed and uploaded onto a database. These letters, contracts, wills, receipts, and notes give a view into the society developed on Elephantine from the third century B.C.E through the Arab conquest in 642 C.E.
Aramaic contract for a large silver loan. Photo: Berlin State Museums/ Sandra Steiß.
The picture painted is of a place built on codified laws and customs. There’s a papyri for a large loan of silver and the record of a civil trial for a property dispute in the 3rd millennium B.C.E.—the exhibition suggests it might be Egypt’s oldest legal document. Elsewhere, there’s an Aramaic marriage contract from the first century B.C.E. that stipulates the amount owed to the woman in the event of divorce. Nearby, there’s a parallel document from nearly a thousand years later, written in Arabic and witnessed by 77 people.
Elephantine may have been at the far fringe of Egyptian society, but it remained very much connected to the broader world, through trade as well as its culture. The Story of Ahikar, for example, is the tale of a wise chancellor to Assyrian kings in the seventh century B.C.E. On show in Berlin there’s the earliest surviving record of the story, from the fifth century B.C.E. and written in Imperial Aramaic, thus pointing to Jewish mercenaries stationed on the island.
So, a Mesopotamian story written in the Imperial language of Persia for Jews living in Egypt. This, perhaps, is what Lepper is gesturing towards when she said that the “knowledge of Elephantine is global.”
“Elephantine Island of the Millennia” is on view at James-Simon-Galerie, Bodestraße, Berlin, Germany, through October 27.
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

Salvador Dalí’s oeuvre was never just made up of ants, eggs, spiders, and melting clocks painted against dreamy, sometimes nightmarish, landscapes. In his later years, the Surrealist turned his hand to a surprising subject: florals.  
Beginning in the late ’60s, Dalí created three series—1968’s “Flora Dalínae (FlorDalí),” 1969’s FlorDalí (Les Fruits),” and 1972’s “Florals (Surrealist Flowers)”—that put a whimsical spin on botanical studies. Quite literally: he would draw his own otherworldly fruits and flowers onto illustrations by 19th-century botanists Pierre-Joseph Redouté and Pierre Antoine Poiteau, before populating the pieces with his beloved motifs such as keys and clocks. The illusionary effect is a delightful one. 
Salvador Dalí, Rose (Rosa papilio), from “Flora Dalínae (FlorDalí)” (1968). Collection of The Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, © Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024; Photo: © Joseph Siciliano USA, 2019.
For the first time in 20 years, the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, is bringing together these three suites in an exhibition titled “Reimagining Nature: Dalí’s Floral Fantasies.” Accompanying the drawings are other artworks and archival material in which Dalí’s interest in flowers can be located. 
“Dalí’s long-standing fascination with botanical evolution profoundly influenced his achievements as one of the great 20th-century masters of illusionism,” said curator Peter Tush in a statement. “For him, nature was a source of not only beauty, but also of his singular approach to visual transformation.”
Salvador Dalí, Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra (1936). Collection of The Dalí Museum; ©Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024.
While not a focus, botany has indeed shown up in Dalí’s earlier works. Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra (1936) and Anatomies (1937) feature figures with flowers for heads, later echoed in the female forms on his June 1939 cover for Vogue. In 1958, his Meditative Rose would bring a psychological tension (Dalí was a Freud fanboy) to a surprisingly realistic depiction of the titular bloom. 
Salvador Dalí, Illustration for “Tres Picos” (1955). Collection of The Dalí Museum; ©Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024.
The artist’s fascination with botany can of course be traced to his Surrealist approach, in his Dalían attempt to explode the standard field of vision by leveraging dreams and metamorphosis. “I see the human form in trees, leaves, animals. I see animal and vegetal characteristics in humans,” he once said. “Human beings create and change. When they sleep, they change totally—into flowers, plants, trees.” 
Salvador Dalí, Cerises Pierrot, from “FlorDalí (Les Fruits)” (1969). Collection of The Dalí Museum; ©Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024; Photo: © David Deranian, 2023.
But the museum also noted that Dalí’s floral series emerged at the height of Pop art, after he grew acquainted with Andy Warhol (who sat the Surrealist down for a screen test). His botanical creations don’t just reflect the movement’s bold colors and provocative energies, but its techniques, marking Dalí’s growing foray into printmaking. 
“Dalí’s botanical series,” said Hank Hine, the museum’s executive director, present “a Surrealist collage to make a new phylum of beings, a new species of perception. Dalí seems to predict the marvels of genetic engineering, pressing the boundaries of what is imaginable and inspiring new ways of seeing the world.” 
Salvador Dalí, Tiger Lilies and Mustache, from “Florals (Surrealist Flowers)” (1972). Collection of The Dalí Museum; ©Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (Artists Rights Society), 2024; Photo: © David Deranian, 2023.
“Reimagining Nature” arrives as Surrealism celebrates its first century. The occasion is also being marked by the major exhibition “Imagine! 100 Years of International Surrealism” at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (later traveling to the Centre Pompidou in Paris), as well as retrospectives on artists including Remedios Varo, Lee Miller, and Dora Maar. 
“Reimagining Nature: Dalí’s Floral Fantasies” is on view at the Dalí Museum, One Dali Blvd., St. Petersburg, Florida, through October 20. 
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

An exhibition of work by Dora Maar, the Surrealist photographer immortalized as Pablo Picasso’s “Weeping Woman,” is going on view at the reopening Amar Gallery in London in June amid growing popularity of her work and the reframing of her career.
The show will feature Maar’s photograms and photographs, including her pictures of Picasso and his celebrated anti-war mural Guernica—of which she was the official photographer.
Dora Maar. Virgin and Crucifix II (ca. 1980.) Photo courtesy of Amar Gallery
“As a photographer, she was a pioneer admired by the likes of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Man Ray. Her position as Picasso’s lover clouded over her undeniable artistic talent which extended far beyond photography and included writing, poetry and painting,” gallerist Amar Singh said in a statement.
The exhibition, “Dora Maar: Behind the Lens,” coincides with the upcoming July 4 release of author Louisa Treger’s historical fiction The Paris Muse, published by Bloomsbury, about the relationship between the two artists and the theatrical production Maar, Dora that will perform at Camden Fringe in August for its third run.
“I’m so glad it seems like her work is finally getting its moment in the spotlight,” said the artist Nadia Jackson, who wrote the play—which is produced by Amar Gallery.
Dora Maar. Picasso Under The Trees—Hotel Vaste Horizon, Mougins (ca. 1936). Photo courtesy of Amar Gallery
Antoine Romand, who acted as an intermediary between the gallery and the Dora Maar Estate, called the exhibit a “fantastic event and a great way of highlighting her work,” noting that it will include iconic images from the photographer as well as some “unusual” photograms rarely seen on the market.
“Generally speaking, Dora Maar’s works are very rare because her photographic production was fairly limited over time,” Romand said. “Another reason is the unique nature of the photograms. This exhibition will show works that have never been seen before.”
Maar was born in 1907 and came of age as Surrealism was taking hold in the French capital. Beginning in the 1930s, she ran her own photography studio, producing fashion editorials and advertisements that nonetheless bore a surrealist edge. On assignment on the set of Jean Renoir’s film The Crime of Monsieur Lange, Maar met Picasso, commencing an affair that lasted almost a decade. During that time, Maar served as muse and model for a number of the Spanish painter’s works, including his 1937 Portrait of Dora Maar, while Picasso treated her (and Marie-Therese Walter, who was also his lover) with unabashed cruelty.
After leaving Picasso, Maar commenced a painting practice, creating figurative then abstract works that were shown in various exhibitions through the 1940s and ’50s. In her latter-day career, in the 1980s, Maar would return to photography with her photograms—the technique of creating images without a camera—that once again drew out her surrealist bent. Maar died in 1997 aged 89.
Dora Maar. Virgin and Crucifix (ca. 1980). Photo courtesy of Amar Gallery
Treger said she felt compelled to put Maar at the forefront of her book because she is among many other women who have “often been overshadowed” by their male counterparts. However, she said “there’s a promising shift” towards recognizing and amplifying such female voices.
“This renewed interest in her reflects a broader movement towards viewing iconic male artists like Picasso in a more nuanced way, from the perspectives of the women who shared their lives,” Treger said. She pointed out that Françoise Gilot, whose career Picasso allegedly tried to suppress when she left him, is having her own exhibition at the Musée Picasso Paris.
Jackson likewise said it was fascinating that the photographer “seems to be acknowledged only in conjunction with Picasso,” but warned that erasing him from her legacy would do her a disservice because it would be erasing an important part of her story.
“It was a theme we explored a lot in our play actually—how, as much as Dora would’ve perhaps wanted her work to outshine her relationship with him, it fundamentally couldn’t have existed without him,” Jackson said. “Unfortunately, you have to acknowledge Picasso in order to respect Dora’s legacy in its entirety, but it is also possible to recognize her artistic career and talents without it being overshadowed by him.”
Dora Maar. La Sagrada Familia (ca. 1933). Photo courtesy of Amar Gallery
In talking about the photographer’s artistic talents, Treger said a piece in Amar Gallery’s exhibition that particularly stood out to her is Virgin and Crucifix (ca. 1980), which she said showcases Maar’s mastery of the photogram technique.
“Through the use of tight framing, and dramatic light and shadows, the Virgin and crucifix materialize from an inky background, radiating magic and mystery,” Treger said. “The juxtaposition of sacred and eerie elements prompts contemplation of the deeper layers of meaning within the image.”
“Dora Maar: Behind the Lens” is on view at Amar Gallery, Kirkham House, 12-14 Whitfield Street, London, June 16–August 18.
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

The new show, “Rialto,” at the Ukrainian Museum in New York spotlights the first formative decade of Peter Hujar’s career. It’s an apt venue: the late photographer was raised by his Ukrainian grandparents on a farm in New Jersey before moving to the city, where he lived in an old theater less than a block from the museum. Hujar became an East Village fixture, one familiar to Peter Doroshenko, the institution’s director.
“I met Peter at a dollar-slice pizza when I was a student in 1985, and it was a two-minute encounter,” he told me. “Then I saw him six months later on St. Marks when I was walking down the street and he said hello. I realized who it was and I thought, well, I’ll contact him later. But he passed six months later, so there was never a later.”
Installation view of “Rialto” at the Ukrainian Museum. Photo: Min Chen.
Doroshenko believes Hujar must have visited the museum, even if the Ukrainian diaspora was perhaps unaware of his work or presence. An exhibition, he said, made sense, particularly one that centered on Hujar’s earliest body of work, from 1955 through 1969, which is likely lesser known. 
“Rialto,” which means meeting place, alludes to Hujar’s Second Avenue studio, at which his fellow artists and downtown denizens often congregated. But it also befits an exhibition of some 75 photographs showcasing Hujar’s range and roving eye. Though the photographer is now recognized for his images of New York’s gay and downtown subcultures, the show is a reminder that he also captured children and animals, street scenes and country roads, famous faces and nameless corpses.
Peter Hujar, Drag Ball, Hotel Diplomat (1) (1968). Courtesy the Ukrainian Museum, New York. © The Peter Hujar Archive – Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
At the heart of the exhibition are three series of original prints: Hujar’s images from his 1957 visit to a Southbury, Connecticut school for children with learning difficulties; his 1958 trip to Florence, Italy; and his tour of the Capuchin Catacombs in Palermo in 1963. The settings vary, but the photographer’s tender gaze runs throughout. None of the human subjects, Doroshenko pointed out as we walked through the show, wear a “photo face.”
Peter Hujar, Girl on Swing, Southbury (1957). Courtesy the Ukrainian Museum, New York. © The Peter Hujar Archive – Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
“Peter was very good at capturing that moment,” he said. “But to catch that moment, he was also very good at making people feel comfortable where they forget that he’s taking their picture. It was very much about creating an atmosphere or a dialogue and then getting that particular picture.”
Also included in the show are Hujar’s spontaneous shots of street scenes—a cat in a bodega, a crowd on Times Square—and portraits of artists including Iggy Pop, Jackie Curtis, and his partner Paul Thek.
Peter Hujar, Paul Thek on Zebra (1965). Courtesy the Ukrainian Museum, New York. © The Peter Hujar Archive – Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
While Hujar’s later work from the 1970s and ’80s may be better known, Doroshenko locates a seed in these early pieces. He noted Hujar’s strict Ukrainian upbringing (he didn’t speak English until he entered kindergarten), as much as how he entered the field of photography without any formal training. These experiences, he said, “created those vectors of series and control” and influenced “how he positioned himself as a photographer.”
“This exhibit shows that throughout his work processes, his interests and his engagement with people and different situations, there were things that people would never expect,” he added. “Photographers like Diane Arbus had a particular kind of hyper-focus; Peter had that but not this tunnel vision. There were always surprises.” 
“Rialto” is on view at the Ukrainian Museum, 222 East 6th Street, New York, through September 1. 
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More