Queer Histories of the Piers | David Hammons: Day’s End

The Whitney, in collaboration with Hudson River Park, has developed a permanent public art project by David Hammons. Entitled Day’s End (2014–21), this monumental installation is located in Hudson River Park along the southern edge of Gansevoort Peninsula, directly across from the Museum. Hammons’s Day’s End takes inspiration from an artwork of the same name by Gordon Matta-Clark, who cut five openings into the Pier 52 shed in 1975. Pier 52 was one of several piers inhabited by a vibrant Queer community in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. 

Featuring interviews with artist and filmmaker Elegance Bratton; activist and Director of Client Services at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project Stefanie Rivera; photographer and archivist Efrain John Gonzalez; activist and performer Egyptt Labeija; and artist and art historian Jonathan Weinberg, this video recalls a time when sex, art, and creativity converged on the waterfront in the years prior to the AIDS crisis in New York City.