Gay men suddenly felt free to sunbathe on the piers naked, cruise, and have sex in public. At the same time, the fight for the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, spurred by the 1969 Stonewall riots, was literally transforming the cultural and social landscape of New York City. Jonathan Weinberg’s provocative book Pier Groups: Art and Sex Along the New York Waterfront ( Penn State University Press) - part art history, part memoir - weaves interviews, documentary photographs, literary texts, artworks, and film stills to show how avant-garde practices competed and mingled with queer identities along the Manhattan waterfront.Īrtists as varied as Vito Acconci, Alvin Baltrop, Shelley Seccombe, and David Wojnarowicz made work in and about the fire-ravaged structures that only 20 years before had been at the center of the world’s busiest shipping port.
In 1970s New York City, in a golden age between the Stonewall riots and the awareness of AIDS, the abandoned piers of the Hudson River became the site for extraordinary works of art and a popular place for nude sunbathing and anonymous sex.
