Third Streaming: a results-focused, purpose-driven consultancy, March 2023
Updates from our work with The Alvin Baltrop Trust
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
Recently our team opened a blue plastic storage container, perhaps the final parcel of Alvin Baltrop’s materials, and began organizing, researching, and inventorying its contents. Portraits of familiar faces inside the box added more depth to our existing knowledge of Baltrop’s life and work. Vintage prints of dance performances in the 1970s confirmed, tangibly, what we had been told about Baltrop’s involvement in the experimental scene. A few prints coated in chemical treatments shed new light on how Baltrop developed his techniques through experimentation. From spools of film to correspondences, each artifact builds a more luminous legacy of Alvin Baltrop.
Ensuring that the materials are properly preserved and archived is our duty, and we are working in several areas to accomplish this. As our team processes the new materials, we are sharing our research on social media to enliven Baltrop in contemporary conversation and expand awareness of his work to adjacent creators. Our collection also includes hundreds of never-before-seen negatives that Tom Powel Imaging is currently digitizing. This project is crucial for preserving Baltrop’s legacy, and we are raising funds to cover the completion of it. Proceeds from our collaboration with Joseph Altuzarra’s genderful brand, ALTU, will support the Alvin Baltrop legacy projects.
We welcome scholars, curators, artists, and writers to visit our archive and library in Brooklyn during this exciting time of expansion. Contact us at info@thirdstreaming.com to schedule a time to view the materials.
With Heart,
Yona Backer
Recent and Current Exhibitions
BACK
January 12, 2023 – February 25, 2023 | Peter Freeman, Inc.
“Spanning more than 50 years, from Pop Art to the present, each work brings the back to the forefront, as in Roy Lichtenstein’s self-referential 1968 Stretcher Frame with Vertical Bar, a trompe l’oeil depiction of the back of the same painting… An undated 1970s photograph by Alvin Baltrop of the back of a man’s head leaves identity and the relationship to both photographer and viewer ambiguous. Baltrop’s images were often taken at the West Side Piers in Manhattan, a longtime clandestine cruising site, and routinely capture people looking elsewhere or engaged with others in a manner that draws the viewer’s attention beyond the frame of the image."
Every Ocean Hughes: Alive Side
January 14, 2023 - April 2, 2023 | The Whitney Museum of American Art
“Featured alongside the performances and video is The Piers Untitled (2009–23), a photographic series that captures the piers on the west side of Manhattan as an unmarked memorial to the marginalized communities and underground cultures that once occupied this unregulated waterfront.”
Our library includes West Street, pictured above, a gorgeous art book of photography by Alvin Baltrop alongside Every Ocean Hughes’ (formerly known as Emily Roysdon) piers photography and poetry, published by Printed Matter in 2010.
God Made My Face: A Collective Portrait of James Baldwin
February 24, 2023 – July 9, 2023 | Mead Art Museum, Amherst
A special iteration of God Made My Face, originally organized by Hilton Als for David Zwirner Gallery in 2019, explores the life, work, and legacy of James Baldwin (1924–1987) through works from Alvin Baltrop, Richard Avedon, Marlene Dumas, and Kara Walker, among other iconic artists, as well as archival materials.
“Baldwin’s ways of seeing and being evolved through his relationships and exposure to the work of visual artists, during an era when the harsh realities of racial oppression were confronted with aesthetics emphasizing self-love, pride, and validation. God Made My Face explores Baldwin through his words, relationships, and the works of other artists produced during his own lifetime and today.”
From the Archive
Street Culture: Alvin Baltrop in Harlem
Baltrop’s photographs of the Westside piers exude a sense of belonging that translates brilliantly to the joys he captured on streets across Manhattan. Though lesser known, these rare color photographs taken by Baltrop in Harlem celebrate community and daily life with a similar love and belonging that the photographer brought to the diverse communities of abandoned Chelsea warehouses. Baltrop shows his art of being an insider with this series highlighting Black community and culture as seen on the city streets.
In the News
Joseph Altuzarra Wants You to Know Alvin Baltrop, Interview Magazine
“I think queer artists have always, for a large part, been either unrecognized or recognized posthumously,” says the designer. “I really feel strongly that those works should be celebrated and should be preserved.”
The New York Waterfront’s Unsung Queer History, Surface Magazine
“The oceanic interracial, same-sex commitment ceremonies and mutual sperm oil massages of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick; the port town bloodlust of Jean Genet’s Querelle of Brest; the horny archeology of Alvin Baltrop’s cruisy pier photography; Arthur Russell proofing mixes of his ecstatic disco anthems while staring at waves from the Staten Island Ferry. The waterfront has been queer territory for centuries.”
Joseph Altuzarra’s Altu is Telling Gay Stories, Starting by Collaborating With the Photographer Alvin Baltrop’s Estate, Vogue
“These scenes are intrinsic to the gay sex and cruising culture of the time, and while their tenderness and raw sensuality and eroticism are evident to most, they are specifically poignant to gay and queer folks.”
ALTU x Alvin Baltrop Collection, PAPER
“So for his first capsule collection for his genderful label ALTU, the designer paid tribute to the late visionary with pieces that memorialize Baltrop's work — known for his Piers series and portrayal of underground and queer '70s and '80s New York culture.”
Manhattan's 70s Pier cruising culture with Alvin Baltrop, Justsmile Magazine
“‘Part historical, part autobiographical, his photographs brim with raw sensuality and eroticism, yet are also full of tenderness and love,’ said Altuzarra.'“
ALTU x Alvin Baltrop Celebrate New York City's Queer Culture, Office Magazine
“This capsule highlights some of Baltrop's lesser-known and remarkable images. Erotic nudes and subversive city scenes can be seen throughout the collection.”
Osa Atoe Picks Her Bandcamp Favorites, Bandcamp
“Non-musicians, such as the photographer Alvin Baltrop, who chronicled queer life on New York’s West Side Piers in the 1970s and ’80s, also appeared in the pages of the zine, connecting to larger themes of visibility and empowerment.”
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For more information on Alvin Baltrop, please visit our website. Please contact Galerie Buchholz for any sales related inquiries.