Perfect timing! All America now stands for the equal rights of all people, at least by the ruling of the free world's highest Supreme Court. And right on time, New York's Foley Gallery presents Sage Sohier’s 'At Home With Themselves' spread of portraits taken in the homes of same-sex unions in America of the 80s.
Yes, you read right – 30 years before the Supreme Court ruling in 2015 was when Sage Sohier's photos of gays and lesbian couples in domestic relationships were created. To be exact in 1986, when the AIDS crisis cost the lives of countless victims and a large part of society was forced to live, love and ultimately, suffer in hiding.
Sage Sohier tells us: “I was interested in how as a culture, we weren’t used to looking at two men touching, and was struck by the visual novelty yet total ordinariness of these same-sex relationships.” The decisive inspiration for her project came from the extremely discreet homosexual relationship her father had to live in. She and her father were in a sense explorers of the secret world of the taboos of that time.
So it is no great surprise that it was absolutely impossible to find someone who was willing to publish the photos – the issue was just too culturally edgy; an audience for lives beyond what was considered normal still had to be born. And what does she think thirty years after the photos? “Looking at these pictures now, I realize that it took a good deal more courage to stand up and be photographed as a same-sex couple in the 1980s than it does today, and I think the photographs somehow convey that. In some, there’s a tentativeness, in others a kind of not-to-be-taken-for-granted raw tenderness. People in my father’s generation had grown up feeling that being openly gay was just not an acceptable option. In my generation, that began to change, and I was grateful to be witness to it”.
About - Sage Sohier (b. 1954) has been photographing people in their environments for more than 30 years. Her work is in several public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Portland Art Museum, and The Brooklyn Museum. She received her B.A. from Harvard University.
Sage Sohier - At Home With Themselves . Foley Gallery . Until 26 July, 2015 . Open Wed – Sun 12 – 6pm . 59 Orchard St . New York . NY 10002 . USA . foleygallery.com
