From Carlo McCormick’s article for Photograph Magazine:
The picture that emerges here speaks of place, not simply as the conjunction of Boston and New York, but of myriad scenes that made up that moment that deeply informed the creative communities of both cities in that time. Rife with portraits of recognizable personages–artists like Pierson, Tabboo! (Tashjian), Greer Lankton, and Pat Hearn, then an artist before she transformed the art world as a dealer (and lots of sexy men), these portraits speak of the affinities within this outsider community and these artists’ need to capture that, yet there are also many self-portraits, speaking to the self-reflexivity within all the work. As a form of documentation, there is great power in these photographs of a subculture that time, drugs, and AIDS has long since extinguished, but the real potency is in how these artists see and feel their world–an emphatically direct photography so in situ that we’re reminded of how posed, staged and mediated this medium often is. It’s a diaristic paean to the ways that love, sexuality, gender, and lifestyle can exist within a group yet manifest a deeply personal expression within the artist.
Browse the exhibition “Boston to New York” at ClampArt
Browse all of David Armstrong’s work at ClampArt
Browse all of Mark Morrisroe’s work at ClampArt
Browse all of Nan Goldin’s work at ClampArt