Anthony Friedkin Gay, A Photographic Essay 1969-1972 June 20, 2009

drkrm.gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition of Anthony Friedkin's GAY, A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY 1969-1972 in commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riot and Gay Pride month. The exhibit will be on view at the drkrm. gallery from June 20 to August 2, 2009. There will be a reception honoring the photographer on Saturday, June 20 from 7-10pm.

This retrospective exhibition of photographs about the Gay community revisits work done by celebrated Los Angeles based photographer Anthony Friedkin. This powerful and important set of vintage photographs historically documents what was then the emerging identity of the homosexual community, and the beginnings of the Gay Liberation Movement.

The images in the exhibit depict a wide-ranging composite of gay life: young hustlers, drag queens, transsexuals, San Francisco entertainers; a Gay Liberation parade in Hollywood; two lesbian women very much in love; effeminate boys growing up in an environment of machismo and the religious subculture typical of East Los Angeles. Also included are portraits of Gay activists Morris Kight and Don Kilhefner, and Gay cleric Troy Perry standing among the burned-down ruins of his downtown church after a suspected arson fire. A reviewer from San Francisco's Artweek said of Friedkin's original 1973 exhibit: "The Gay Essay is comparable in magnitude to Robert Frank's The Americans...the exhibit in its entirety is amazingly strong. And for the most part the photographs are singularly beautiful in execution."
An internationally recognized fine art photographer, Mr. Friedkin's images are in the permanent collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. He is represented in numerous private collections as well. His work has been exhibited world wide and has been published in Rolling Stone, Zoom, Time, Newsweek and many others.

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