Pier Groups: A Conversation with Jonathan Weinberg

To mark the publication of Jonathan Weinberg’s provocative new book Pier Groups, the author speaks with artists Andreas Sterzing and Sasha Wortzel about art, sexuality, and the New York waterfront from the 1970s to the present. In light of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots, the conversation explores how the area has changed since the 1970s and highlights the artists’ personal recollections of the piers and New York City over the past fifty years. Following Stonewall, the Hudson River piers and surrounding Meatpacking District became a site of exploration and experimentation for queer artists. Pier Groups (Penn State Press) weaves together interviews, documentary photographs, literary texts, artworks, and film stills to show how avant-garde practices competed and mingled with queer identities along the Manhattan waterfront. Part memoir, part art history, the book is a document of the artistic and sexual expression that characterized—and ultimately transformed—the neighborhood where the Whitney now stands.