Whitney Biennial 2022: 
Quiet as It’s Kept

Floors 1 and 3

Born 1960 in New York, NY
Lives in Brooklyn and Queens, NY

In this work, Nayland Blake has re-created the facade of the Mineshaft, a members-only gay sex club that operated from 1976 to 1985 on Washington Street at Little West 12th Street, around the corner from the Whitney. There was no nameplate on the entrance, just the phrase “PRIVATE CLUB 835” and a bouncer to enforce a butch dress code and to make sure that entrants were known and trusted to the community. Despite the limited number of patrons, the bar became legendary as a playground for sexual adventure and was a major cultural force in New York night life.

Blake’s work faces Day’s End (2021), a public sculpture by David Hammons that traces the form of a warehouse that once occupied Pier 52 on the Hudson River. Like the Mineshaft, the pier had been an important place to gather for queer socializing and sex. Both locations, along with leather bars The Lure, The Manhole, The Vault, and The Spike have been displaced by galleries and retail development in New York’s Meatpacking district. While in Day’s End a language of absence might be seen to evoke New York’s queer history, along with other aspects of waterfront art and history, Blake actively mourns this once-vital aspect of the neighborhood.