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Just one of a string of gay bars in the immediate neighborhood, The Monster was in the midst of a normal Monday. At the crescendo of one particular lyric-"that's the story of, that's the glory of love"-a crooner from the crowd, his square, white sunglasses askew, flashed a smile, adding contagious enthusiasm to an already buoyant singalong. In the corner, pianist Dan Daly was entertaining the crowd with classics, sipping a Perrier set atop his frosted glass-covered cocktail table, as patrons circled up and joined in on every number. Near the entrance, the bartender-in between giving hugs to friends and regulars-was running up and down the line, greeting regulars and reminding everyone of the 2-for-1 special tonight. Inside The Monster, a gay bar around the corner from Stonewall, where the event played out on video screens, it was difficult to hear for a different reason. The occasional Orlando t-shirt slid through the crowd, a physical reminder of how close many of the assembled were, and felt, to those who were murdered less than 24 hours earlier.Īt the edges of the thousands-strong crowd, it was difficult to hear the speakers, or make out the shouts of solidarity. A man with rainbow-colored angel wings stood watching the scene unfold. There’s a lot of intimacy in the pictures, a lot of connection with the subject matter.Friends met and embraced.
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That’s one of the reasons why I find it so interesting, because it blends both historical documentation and specificity, but it is also this very personal body of work. “It’s not a mathematical analysis or State of the Union of gay life at the time. “Friedkin followed his own trail when making the essay,” Julian Cox, exhibition curator, told Slate Magazine. There’s a lot of intimacy in the pictures, a lot of connection with the subject matter.”
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‘The Gay Essay’ exhibit at the de Young Museum opened on June 14th to commemorate the 45th anniversary of this historical event. These photographs give a glimpse into the lives of drag queens following the violent demonstrations of the Stonewall riots in New York City, which occurred in the early morning hours on June 23, 1969.
#Gay bars in chicago in the early 80s series#
‘The Gay Essay’, an art exhibition currently running at the de Young Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco, takes a look at gay life in California from 1969 to 1973 with an amazing series of black and white photographs by photographer Anthony Friedkin.