‘High Noon’, Deichtorhallen (2024)13 Images
High Noon, meaning either a confrontation or apex of creativity, is the title of the latest exhibition at Hamburg’s Deichtorhallen. The show reunites a generation of photographers – including Nan Goldin, David Armstrong, Mark Morrisroe and Philip-Lorca diCorcia – who encountered one another between the 1970s and early 1980s while studying at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, colloquially known as the ‘Boston School’. Curated by Dr Sabine Schnakenberg, the show presents around 150 works from the F.C. Gundlach Collection, assembling work that captures the spirit of the burgeoning underground scene during the time of Reagan’s Presidency.
Graduating in 1977, Goldin arrived at the Boston college with a reputation. Armstrong, her close friend since studying together at the hippy school ‘Satya’ in Lincoln, Massachusetts recalled that “all the cool kids who met in the morning to eat hash brownies talked about this legend, Nan Goldin, who got kicked out of school the year before”. Armstrong and Goldin bonded through their artistic practices and remained lifelong friends until Armstrong’s death due to liver cancer in 2014. Having trained in fine art before photography, Armstrong’s poetic approach to the photographic image (photographer Ryan McGinley once compared his light-filled shots to the Dutch paintings of Vermeer) contrasted stylistically with the raw, gritty and candid shots of Goldin. Whereas Armstrong insisted on only capturing his subjects when bathed in natural light, Goldin’s gaze often delved into the artificially illuminated interiors of dive bar bathrooms and messy bedrooms – fleeting, stolen moments amid the chaos of her own life as well as the vibrant punk and LGBTQ scenes. Yet with or without the camera’s brilliant flash, both photographers consistently conveyed visceral intimacy with their chosen subjects, as seen in Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1979–1986) or Armstrong’s black and white portraits from the early 1990s.
Immersed in partying, psychedelics and polaroids, Goldin, alongside the other members of the Boston School, introduced the camera to novel, imaginative territories. In reaction to the rise of mass consumerism in the era of Reaganism, the Boston school of artists found inspiration in the taboo and transgressive – the underground, non-conformist scenes of bohemian, queer culture that flourished in Downtown New York. Goldin’s close friend Mark Morisroe, who she once described as “Boston’s first punk” was one of the key figures in this movement. Like Goldin, he had learned to make his own way in the world from early adolescence. Raised in a turbulent and troubled family, characterised by his mother’s drug addiction and an absent father, Morisroe turned to sex work in his teens to survive. Aged 17, he was shot in the back by an unsatisfied client. It left the young artist with spinal damage and a limp for the rest of his life, which would invariably shape his outlook on the world. Reflecting these early traumas, the artist’s practice – often centring on the lives of young gay prostitutes – experimented with polaroids and photomontages of X-rays and skeletal imagery. His imagery presents a certain unfiltered, masculine fragility, as seen in works from High Noon such as Self-Portrait with Broken Finger, Christmas, 1984. In 1989, Morisroe died at 30 of Aids-related complications – a tragic and premature death that has since overshadowed his artistic legacy.
In contrast to his peers, the photographs of Philip-Lorca diCorcia are meticulously staged and imbued with a sense of intrigue. Emerging in the 1980s alongside Goldin, Armstrong and Morisroe, he developed a distinctive visual vocabulary that feels theatrical and highly executed. Like stage actors his subjects occupy interior settings with presence and intention, the works are far removed from the gritty and candid shots of other members of the Boston school. But as seen in works from his Hustler series in High Noon – such as ‘Mary and Babe, N.Y., 1982’, or ‘Marilyn’ – diCorcia’s gaze gives visibility to individuals living on the fringes of society and often on the threshold of destitution. Between 1990 and 1992, DiCorcia drove around Hollywood, finding sex workers working around the Sunset Strip. He then hired them to pose in motel rooms, gas stations and parking lots, paying them the same fee they would earn from clients. Each photograph was then titled with their name, age, place of origin and the amount of money they were paid by DiCorcia for posing. A form of social documentary, like the work of his peers, DiCorcia proved that photography could also exist as a fine art discipline, while also giving gravitas and visibility to taboo everyday realities.
High Noon articulates that this generation of photographers was expanding the boundaries of the medium, pushing photography to new heights while also confronting the darkness and lightness of their own lives against the backdrop of a rapidly changing youth culture.
High Noon is featured at Deichtorhallen Hamburg 13 December 2024 – 4 May 2025, check out the gallery above for a selection of images from the exhibition.
