Venice Biennale

Peter Hujar 

Portraits in Life and Death 

Santa Maria della Pietà

Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà
Calle della Pietà
Castello 3703

The Peter Hujar Foundation, New York presents the first exhibition in Europe of Peter Hujar’s legendary Portraits in Life and Death, a collateral Event of the 60th Esposizione Internationale d’Arte Venice, 2024. Comprising the complete set of 41 photographs reproduced in the 1976 book, Portraits in Life and Death—the only publication Hujar produced during his lifetime, for which his friend, the critic Susan Sontag, penned the introduction—the exhibition will be curated by Grace Deveney, David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Associate Curator of Photography and Media at the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Hujar is renowned for photographing his subjects with penetrating sensitivity and psychological depth. Deeply embedded within the avant-garde milieu of artists, musicians, writers, and performers in downtown New York during the 1970s and early ‘80s, Hujar’s unflinching portraits captured his subjects with astonishing intimacy and vulnerability.

Photo Credit: Peter Hujar, Self-Portrait Lying Down, 1975 © The Peter Hujar Archive/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY