THE DIARY 08: ALTU X ALVIN BALTROP - Fashion & Art Love Affair
Image via Altu.World by Ryan McGinley
ALTU x Alvin Baltrop limited edition logo t-shirt - Printed artwork: Big Boy, c. 1979, © 2022 The Alvin Baltrop Trust/ARS
The romance between art and fashion has been a long and mutually beneficial love affair. From the surrealist-inspired designs of Schiaparelli in the 30’s to the recent Yayoi Kusama freaky robots in the windows of Louis Vuitton, this relationship has lasted a century and, these days, seems stronger than ever. While brands like Vuitton, Prada or Calvin Klein have helped to promote the work of artist superstars like Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons or Richard Prince, others have translated their deep respect of inventive and wildly provocative artists in their midst by investing with heartfelt support of such creators whose work may have not achieved that kind of fame and, in some cases, might have even gone unnoticed or forgotten.
This is the case of Alvin Baltrop, the late Bronx-born photographer who spent the 70’s and 80’s photographing gay life in the New York City piers before the AIDS epidemic.To spend more time in the piers, he quit his job as a taxi driver and became a part time mover. He spent hours and hours parked by the Hudson River, camera in hand, taking hundreds of pictures, creating a photo treasure that, in big part, was never printed, produced, shared. When he learned that he had cancer, in the late 1990’s, he began working on a book project that consumed all his time until his death, in 2004.
Image via Altu.World by Ryan McGinley
Few people knew about Baltrop and his work until 2008, when Art Forum published a long article about him. Fashion Designer Joseph Altuzarra read the story and the photographer and his haunting images got his attention. Altuzarra is a collector of gay art, with works by Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Hujar and Tom of Finland in his collection. “I think queer artists have always, for a large part, been either unrecognized or recognized posthumously,” he said in a conversation with Interview magazine. “I really feel strongly that those works should be celebrated and should be preserved.”
When it comes to Baltrop, Altuzarra is doing his part. He is collaborating with the photographer’s estate in a collection for his one-year-old “genderful” brand, Altu, a fashion line designed “as a reflection of queer culture, but more specifically gay culture,” as he explained in Vogue.
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“I think queer artists have always, for a large part, been either unrecognized or recognized posthumously,” said Altuzarra in a conversation with Ernesto Macias at Interview Magazine, on December 22, 22. “I really feel strongly that those works should be celebrated and should be preserved.”
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Image via Joseph Altuzarra
Image via Altu.World by Ryan McGinley
In the capsule collection, the Baltrop photos are printed directly on leather pants or T-shirts, unaltered, as if they were hanging in a gallery. The campaign was photographed by Ryan McGinley, with dreamy images that evoke the colors and style of the 70’s.
“I think even though we really think of Alvin’s work initially as these quite sexualized images of men cruising on the piers, what I was really struck by was that a lot of the images are very tender and very kind.”, said the designer in Interview. “There’s this softness about his gaze, which feels really compassionate and kind. It was a time during which the gay community and gay men had to find love, touch, and tenderness in places that were really on the fringe of the city.”
The collection made us think not only about the visual and historic value of Baltrop images, but also about how much the gay experience has changed in New York City and many parts of the world. The grittiness of the city in the 70’s and 80’s is now viewed by many with a filter of nostalgia, even romance, thinking that that was a time of bohemian decadence and sexual freedom. New York was a refuge of hope and opportunity for people that, in many cases, could not find either anywhere else. Things are different now. Being gay is different now. Cruising is, like almost everything else, a technological activity, and the piers no longer offer an escapade of sexual exploration and freedom. They are now a clean and active park, a valued real estate property, a view for shining and expensive apartment towers along the river and a set for the perfect selfie. Gay people- or at least many in the gay community, we should say- have renewed ambitions: marriage, career, family, respect, things that for the New York LGBTQ people were unthinkable half a century ago. Much has been conquered, but, in view of the current political and cultural climate, much more is left to be conquered.
The Piers (man from behind) by Alvin Baltrop (1977-78); Silver Gelatin Print
The Piers (two men) by Alvin Baltrop; Silver Gelatin Print