Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery. Sunil Gupta, DACS 2020.
In images, in picturesIn the mid-1970s, this young Indian who came to study photography in New York, took up post on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, the epicenter of the birth of a gay community. Long kept confidential, his portraits taken from life show an era of freedom.
In February, an amazing happening took place in the streets of Greenwich Village. During New York fashion week, the ready-to-wear brand Helmut Lang did not organize a fashion show, opting instead for a kind of performance: no guests or podium, but models walking on the sidewalks of Christopher Street, alone or as a couple, stopping in front of a bar, chatting on the porch of a storefront …
Each of these funny onlookers was immortalized by the photographer Sunil Gupta, installed on the sidewalk. Exactly the same place as forty-five years earlier, when the artist was shooting passers-by on the fly. Because this fake parade was actually a remake, a tribute to his work carried out for a few weeks in 1976 and 1977.
“In the mid-1970s there was a blessed period. The Stonewall riots in the neighborhood in 1969 had paved the way for unprecedented freedom. And AIDS was not there yet. »Sunil Gupta
In the mid-1970s, Sunil Gupta, born in New Delhi in 1953, moved to New York. He has just left the family circle, typical of the Indian middle class, " who (him) had two options: to become an engineer or a doctor ". He signed up to study art at the prestigious New School, Manhattan University. There, he took photography lessons with the school's emblematic teachers, Lisette Model and Philippe Halsman, who encouraged their students to wander around the city to take pictures and practice their craft.
Sunil Gupta goes to Greenwich Village, more specifically to Christopher Street. The young man, homosexual, is used to places, which then constitute, with the Castro district, in San Francisco, one of the epicenters of the gay movement then emerging. "In the middle of the years 1970 there was a blessed period. The Stonewall riots in the neighborhood in 1969 had paved the way for unprecedented freedom. And AIDS was not there yet ", he remembers today, adding that "The men were very free on the street, free as they had never been before. They were holding hands, kissing. "
On Christopher Street, the boys get atrophied, flirted, paraded. And the young man does not lose a crumb. He settles down on the street and shoots anyone who catches his eye. Sometimes he asks people to ask. "I was 23 years old, he has fun, there were too many men and not enough time. " Above all, the camera allows the shy kid "To go talk to the boys".
You have 48.13% of this article to read. The suite is reserved for subscribers.
