“We Glimpse the City in Pieces”
Tracing Downtown through the Whitney’s Collection
Sat, Jan 24, 2026
3–4 pm
Peter Hujar, West Side Parking Lots, NYC, (1976), Gelatin silver print, 14 7/8 × 14 7/8in. (37.8 × 37.8 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, 2024.283. Gift from the Emily Fisher Landau Collection ©️ The Peter Hujar Archive
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Floor 6, Sondra Gilman Study Center
Taking inspiration from Douglas Crimp’s idea that we understand history and the city in glimpsed fragments, this workshop offers an opportunity to look closely at works on paper from the Whitney’s collection. The selection highlights key sites of artistic collaboration and production in downtown Manhattan from the 1970s and 1980s, drawing on the museum’s rich holdings of works related to the West Side piers, including Gordon Matta-Clark’s Days End, photographs by Alvin Baltrop and Peter Hujar, and works by Kiki Smith and David Wojnarowicz. Other selections include print portfolios published by A.I.R. Gallery and the Lower East Side Printshop, as well as drawings by Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds and G. Peter Jemison. Through close-looking at the photographs, prints, and drawings on view, Curatorial Fellow Eli Harrison will lead a focused discussion on the material legacies of downtown art in relation to the museum’s collecting history.
The program is part of the symposium Locating Downtown, presented in partnership with New York University Special Collections.
