Sergio Quirós
Hudson River (for Peter Hujar), No.1
"Between 1975 and 1976, American photographer Peter Hujar created a series of photographs titled “Hudson River” (and variants). This work is notable not only for its artistic representation of the iconic landmark, but also because of its physical connection to arguably Hujar’s most acclaimed body of work, his pictures of the gay cruising happening every day at the Hudson River piers.
For the New York City gay community, 1976 was still a far cry from the devastation that the AIDS epidemic would unleash in the 1980s and 1990s. Hujar himself succumbed to the virus in 1987.
It's 2026, and I now live just a short walk from where Peter Hujar took his famous photos around fifty years ago. Whenever I'm there, I think of Hujar; I consider how things have changed in the last five decades for gay men like us, yet how strange that my life today is not that different from his back then.
Hudson River (for Peter Hujar) is my homage to his 1975-1976 images of the same subject. I rendered the image in the colors of sunset, carrying a mysterious red presence looming underwater."
