PHOTOGRAPHY: “Stanley Stellar: The Piers” Showcases Queer Life and Sexual Expression at New York Piers in the 70s and 80s.

August, 1982

For almost 5 decades, Brooklyn-born photographer Stanley Stellar has documented various aspects of queer life. His lens has captured intimate moments of the first Gay Pride Parade, the Gay Liberation movement and the impact of the initial outbreak of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on queer people.

Pier August, 1980

In Stellar’s latest exhibition, Stanley Stellar: The Piers, unseen images of his documentation of the Christopher Street Piers in New York are on display.

Pier Skids, 1977

“It’s a show about three gay piers,” Stellar explains in an interview with AnOther. “They were immense, abandoned, shed-like buildings. It was a hostile world. In the city, gay men could only meet at night, in the dark, in clubs or in bars. The piers were free. You could take off your clothes and lay in the sun, nude, with other guys looking for sex, right in Manhattan. And the police didn’t care. It was safe. We became a city within a city, and it was based on freedom and sunlight. There was nowhere else we could have done that. None.”

Robert Feeling Free, 1983

Piers Late Afternoon, 1979

Nipple Blue Sky, 1977

In the same interview, Stellar goes onto say: “The work, above all, is a testament to the ways in which gay men live. Being gay also means being human. And I’m really good at that part. There’s not much documentation of gay men’s lives. How do we do that? How did they live? What happened to them? Were they happy? That, coming from that time in my chronology, I wanted it. I wanted it all.” 

Danny September II, 1982

Stanley Stellar: The Piers runs at the Kapp Kapp gallery in New York until 19 February 2022.