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Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being

Past viewing_room
February 18 – April 3, 2021
  • Hugh Steers

    Strange State of Being

    February 18 – April 3, 2021

  • Alexander Gray Associates, New York presents Strange State of Being, an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Hugh...

     Hugh Steers in his studio at Yale, c.1985

    Alexander Gray Associates, New York presents Strange State of Being, an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Hugh Steers (1962–1995). A figurative painter, the artist was diagnosed with HIV in 1987, ultimately succumbing to AIDS-related complications in 1995 at the age of 32. The Gallery’s show takes its title from a 1994 quote by the artist, “There seems to be a buzz. … I’m in such a strange state of being, and nothing’s ever going to be the same.” Reflective of his state, Steers’s compositions, enigmatic scenes of sickness and tenderness, unflinchingly bear witness to the true cost of the AIDS epidemic while speaking to our present health crisis and political fragility.

    Works like Two Men and a Woman (1992) and Hospital Bed (1993) capture the vicissitudes of disease. Transforming these intimate scenes into melancholic tableaux, Steers’s men and women inhabit worlds suffused with love and potential loss. “In a real way those characters were Hugh’s constant companions,” the artist’s friend Julie Heffernan explains. “Avatars of love and friendship that every one of us needs in order to survive day-to-day.” These anonymous figures reveal Steers’s hunger for companionship as he navigated a society wracked by AIDS.

  • Other paintings and works on paper depict the sociopolitical impact of the epidemic. Official Letter (1990) features a woman wearing a bag over her head. Through its reference to hooding, the composition draws parallels between an execution and a positive HIV diagnosis. At the same time, it metaphorically references the US government’s refusal to acknowledge the full devastation of the AIDS crisis—a willful blindness that parallels the initial national response to Covid-19. Similarly critical of American leadership, additional works by the artist employ megaphones, gas masks, and US flags to underscore the lack of a timely response to the epidemic.

     

    In contrast to these overt critiques, the majority of Steers’s compositions articulate his inner fears and desires as he made art under the specter of the virus. Highlighting the influence of the Western canon on his practice, a series of images, including Girl in Blue and Red (1987), feature an imp-like child whose eerie presence recalls that of the creature from Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare (1781). In Gold Box (1988), Steers presents this being blinding a man as a snake slithers from an open box. Referencing the myth of Pandora, who released sickness into the world, this menacing painting—created one year after the artist tested positive for HIV—expresses his despair at the diagnosis. Similarly ominous, additional canvases from this period also contain snakes, as well as harbingers of death like crows.

     

    Despite these portents, while indelibly shaped by the AIDS crisis, Steers’s work always rises above its grim realities. As the writer Justin Spring suggests, at the core of the artist’s oeuvre is “… a lingering desire for something transcendent.” Searching for transcendence in the midst of the epidemic, Steers’s paintings gain new resonance in 2021. Their imagery, limned by what the artist once described as the “soft glow of brutality,” anticipates the isolation, loss, and uncertainty of the Covid-19 pandemic.

  • Hugh Steers’s work was featured in AIDS at Home: Art and Everyday Activism at the Museum of the City of...

    Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)                                                  

    Hugh Steers’s work was featured in AIDS at Home: Art and Everyday Activism at the Museum of the City of New York, NY (2017) and Art AIDS America, curated by Jonathan Katz and Rock Hushka, at the Tacoma Art Museum, WA (2015); West Hollywood Library and One Archives Gallery and Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2015); Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA (2016); Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, NY (2016); and Alphawood Foundation, Chicago, IL (2016). His work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2013); New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY (1994); Richard Anderson, New York, NY (1992); Midtown Galleries, New York, NY (1992); Denver Art Museum, CO (1991); Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY (1988); and the Drawing Center, New York, NY (1987), among others. Steers’s work is in private and public art collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Walker Art Center, Minnesota, MN; and Denver Art Museum, CO.In 1989, Steers received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowship. A comprehensive monographic catalogue of Steers’s work was published by Visual AIDS in 2015.

  • Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)

    Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)

    • Hugh Steers Crow, 1988 Oil on canvas 37 1/2 x 30 1/8 in (95.25 x 76.83 cm) In 1988, one year after receiving his positive HIV diagnosis, Hugh Steers painted two compositions that featured crows, mythological harbingers of deaths. These crow works reveal the artist's struggle to come to terms with his own mortality as he lived life and made art under the specter of AIDS. Indicative of this struggle, Crows (1988) features a bird flying into the face of a partially clothed man as though he wants to blind him. Its portentous feathered form recalls the nightmarish swarm of owls and bats from Francisco Goya’s aquatint, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (c. 1799), revealing the influence of the Western art historical canon on Steers's practice.
      Hugh Steers
      Crow, 1988
      Oil on canvas
      37 1/2 x 30 1/8 in (95.25 x 76.83 cm) 
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
      In 1988, one year after receiving his positive HIV diagnosis, Hugh Steers painted two compositions that featured crows, mythological harbingers of deaths. These crow works reveal the artist's struggle to come to terms with his own mortality as he lived life and made art under the specter of AIDS. Indicative of this struggle, Crows (1988) features a bird flying into the face of a partially clothed man as though he wants to blind him. Its portentous feathered form recalls the nightmarish swarm of owls and bats from Francisco Goya’s aquatint, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (c. 1799), revealing the influence of the Western art historical canon on Steers's practice. 
    Close
  • Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)

    Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)

    • Hugh Steers Gas Mask, 1992 Oil on paper 12 1/2 x 11 1/8 in (31.75 x 28.57 cm) Steers’s subject matter often speaks to his experience of living through an evolving Queer identity and the devastating AIDS crisis. Alongside Flag, Megaphone (1992), Gas Mask (1992) marks a departure from Steers’s usual domestic scenes of couples and individuals confronting the horrors of the epidemic. Instead, the work alludes to the US government’s inaction in the wake of the AIDS crisis. Featuring an American flag and a man in a suit wearing a gas mask hooked to a machine, the image speaks to the artist's own frustration with the national response to AIDS, marking one of his few overt political statements.
      Hugh Steers
      Gas Mask, 1992
      Oil on paper
      12 1/2 x 11 1/8 in (31.75 x 28.57 cm)
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
      Steers’s subject matter often speaks to his experience of living through an evolving Queer identity and the devastating AIDS crisis. Alongside Flag, Megaphone (1992), Gas Mask (1992) marks a departure from Steers’s usual domestic scenes of couples and individuals confronting the horrors of the epidemic. Instead, the work alludes to the US government’s inaction in the wake of the AIDS crisis. Featuring an American flag and a man in a suit wearing a gas mask hooked to a machine, the image speaks to the artist's own frustration with the national response to AIDS, marking one of his few overt political statements.
    Close
    • Hugh Steers Girl in Blue and Red, 1987 Oil on paper 11 1/8 x 14 6/8 in (28.42 x 37.78 cm) In the late 1980s, roughly around the time he learned he had HIV, Hugh Steers began to paint images of a small, cryptic being. Steers often depicted this child-like figure crouched on people's chests or clutching their head—as though she was trying to smother them. In Girl in Blue and Red (1987), Steers presents this imp-like creature mournfully sitting on another male figure. Her position recalls that of the incubus from Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare (1781), and reveals the influence of the Western canon on the artist's practice. Like the woman suffering from the nightmare in Fuseli's painting, Steers’s man is prone, with blood-red drapery pooled around this stiff, collapsed form.
      Hugh Steers
      Girl in Blue and Red, 1987
      Oil on paper
      11 1/8 x 14 6/8 in (28.42 x 37.78 cm)
       
       
       
       
       
      In the late 1980s, roughly around the time he learned he had HIV, Hugh Steers began to paint images of a small, cryptic being. Steers often depicted this child-like figure crouched on people's chests or clutching their head—as though she was trying to smother them. In Girl in Blue and Red (1987), Steers presents this imp-like creature mournfully sitting on another male figure. Her position recalls that of the incubus from Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare (1781), and reveals the influence of the Western canon on the artist's practice. Like the woman suffering from the nightmare in Fuseli's painting, Steers’s man is prone, with blood-red drapery pooled around this stiff, collapsed form. 
    Close
    • Hugh Steers Crows, 1988 Oil on paper 11 1/8 x 13 2/8 in (28.26 x 33.81 cm) In 1988, one year after receiving his positive HIV diagnosis, Hugh Steers painted two compositions that featured crows, mythological harbingers of deaths. These crow works reveal the artist's struggle to come to terms with his own mortality as he lived life and made art under the specter of AIDS. Indicative of this struggle, Crows features two birds about to alight on a reclining nude. Their vulture-like forms inject an air of menace and violence into the oil sketch—as though, like the eagle from the myth of Prometheus, they are going to strip the flesh from the vulnerable man—and recall the ominous owls and bats of Francisco Goya’s aquatint, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (c. 1799).
      Hugh Steers
      Crows, 1988
      Oil on paper
      11 1/8 x 13 2/8 in (28.26 x 33.81 cm)
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
      In 1988, one year after receiving his positive HIV diagnosis, Hugh Steers painted two compositions that featured crows, mythological harbingers of deaths. These crow works reveal the artist's struggle to come to terms with his own mortality as he lived life and made art under the specter of AIDS. Indicative of this struggle, Crows features two birds about to alight on a reclining nude. Their vulture-like forms inject an air of menace and violence into the oil sketch—as though, like the eagle from the myth of Prometheus, they are going to strip the flesh from the vulnerable man—and recall the ominous owls and bats of Francisco Goya’s aquatint, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (c. 1799). 
    Close
  • Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)

    Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)

    • Hugh Steers Gold Box, 1988 Signed Oil on canvas 54 1/8 x 65 1/2 in (137.32 x 166.37 cm) In the late 1980s, roughly around the time he learned he was HIV positive, Hugh Steers began to paint images of a small, cryptic being. Steers often depicted this child-like figure crouched on people's chests or clutching their head-as though she was trying to smother them. This imp-like creature recalls both the demon from Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare (1781), as well as the ominous owls and bats of Francisco Goya's aquatint, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (c. 1799), and reveals the influence of the Western canon on the artist's practice. In Gold Box (1988), Steers presents this figure blinding another as a snake slithers away from an open box. Referencing the Greek myth of Pandora, whose curiosity led her to open a box and release sickness into the world, as well as the temptation of Eve, this menacing composition reveals Steers's own fears and despair after learning of his diagnosis.
      Hugh Steers
      Gold Box, 1988
      Signed
      Oil on canvas
      54 1/8 x 65 1/2 in (137.32 x 166.37 cm)
       

      In the late 1980s, roughly around the time he learned he was HIV positive, Hugh Steers began to paint images of a small, cryptic being. Steers often depicted this child-like figure crouched on people's chests or clutching their head-as though she was trying to smother them. This imp-like creature recalls both the demon from Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare (1781), as well as the ominous owls and bats of Francisco Goya's aquatint, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (c. 1799), and reveals the influence of the Western canon on the artist's practice. In Gold Box (1988), Steers presents this figure blinding another as a snake slithers away from an open box. Referencing the Greek myth of Pandora, whose curiosity led her to open a box and release sickness into the world, as well as the temptation of Eve, this menacing composition reveals Steers's own fears and despair after learning of his diagnosis.

    Close
    • Hugh Steers Sleeping Cat, 1988 Signed, titled, and dated on verso Oil on canvas 39 4/8 x 47 5/8 in (100.58 x 121.16 cm) In Sleeping Cat (1988), Steers depicts two nude men in bed. One man is asleep, a black cat curled up tightly next to his chest. Steers often included cats in his compositions as visual signifiers of his subjects' emotional states. In this composition, the cat's restfulness serves to underscore the deep somnolence of the lax man. In contrast, his companion is awake and perched awkwardly on the edge of bed. He reaches out to lightly touch his sleeping partner as if he to reassure himself that all is well, seemingly unaware of the snake slowly winding its way up his leg. This enigmatic and surreal tableau recalls the art historian Gerard Haggerty’s observation about Steers’s paintings, “Their … execution suggests the urgency that accompanies the delivery of news in a moment of crisis, or the need to set down vivid dreams before they fade from memory.” A dream-like scene, Sleeping Cat obliquely articulates the anxieties of the AIDS epidemic, its imagery inviting viewers to construct their own narratives around sickness, companionship, and the danger of desire.
      Hugh Steers
      Sleeping Cat, 1988
      Signed, titled, and dated on verso
      Oil on canvas
      39 4/8 x 47 5/8 in (100.58 x 121.16 cm)
       

       

       

      In Sleeping Cat (1988), Steers depicts two nude men in bed. One man is asleep, a black cat curled up tightly next to his chest. Steers often included cats in his compositions as visual signifiers of his subjects' emotional states. In this composition, the cat's restfulness serves to underscore the deep somnolence of the lax man. In contrast, his companion is awake and perched awkwardly on the edge of bed. He reaches out to lightly touch his sleeping partner as if he to reassure himself that all is well, seemingly unaware of the snake slowly winding its way up his leg. This enigmatic and surreal tableau recalls the art historian Gerard Haggerty’s observation about Steers’s paintings, “Their … execution suggests the urgency that accompanies the delivery of news in a moment of crisis, or the need to set down vivid dreams before they fade from memory.” A dream-like scene, Sleeping Cat obliquely articulates the anxieties of the AIDS epidemic, its imagery inviting viewers to construct their own narratives around sickness, companionship, and the danger of desire.

    Close
    • Hugh Steers Hospital Bed, 1993 Signed, titled, and dated on verso Oil on canvas 61 2/8 x 65 1/8 in (155.7 x 165.35 cm) For Steers, the choice of subject matter was not merely a means of contextualizing and documenting the realities of life and death experienced during the AIDS epidemic, but also a personal reckoning with his own battle. In the midst of so much anger, hatred and fear Steers explained his need for compassion, saying, “I would like to be able to act or have someone care about me the way some of the people in my paintings act or care about each other. It’s as if painting it will make it become real. That painting of a man holding another man is conjuring that tenderness, that hope that someone will still care about you and will be there.” Following his 1991 hospitalization for AIDS related pneumonia, Steers began to paint hospital scenes. Speaking about these images, he remarked, “I really feel like the hospital paintings are affecting my life as I make them by helping me accept my own sexuality and my illness.” In Hospital Bed (1993), the artist depicts two male nudes—likely lovers—entwined in a hospital bed. One lax figure, sleeping, unconscious, or even dead, sports a feeding tube and IV, and is draped across the lap of his companion. Recalling Michelangelo's Pietá, which depict Mary mournfully contemplating the body of her son, who she holds in her lap, the painting updates this classic image of loss, and transforms the two men it depicts into avatars for the senseless tragedy of the AIDS crisis.
      Hugh Steers
      Hospital Bed, 1993
      Signed, titled, and dated on verso
      Oil on canvas
      61 2/8 x 65 1/8 in (155.7 x 165.35 cm)
       
      For Steers, the choice of subject matter was not merely a means of contextualizing and documenting the realities of life and death experienced during the AIDS epidemic, but also a personal reckoning with his own battle. In the midst of so much anger, hatred and fear Steers explained his need for compassion, saying, “I would like to be able to act or have someone care about me the way some of the people in my paintings act or care about each other. It’s as if painting it will make it become real. That painting of a man holding another man is conjuring that tenderness, that hope that someone will still care about you and will be there.”

      Following his 1991 hospitalization for AIDS related pneumonia, Steers began to paint hospital scenes. Speaking about these images, he remarked, “I really feel like the hospital paintings are affecting my life as I make them by helping me accept my own sexuality and my illness.” In Hospital Bed (1993), the artist depicts two male nudes—likely lovers—entwined in a hospital bed. One lax figure, sleeping, unconscious, or even dead, sports a feeding tube and IV, and is draped across the lap of his companion. Recalling Michelangelo's Pietá, which depict Mary mournfully contemplating the body of her son, who she holds in her lap, the painting updates this classic image of loss, and transforms the two men it depicts into avatars for the senseless tragedy of the AIDS crisis.
    Close
  • Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021) (View more details about this item in a popup).
    Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021) (View more details about this item in a popup).
    Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021) (View more details about this item in a popup).

    Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)                                                  

  • Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)

    Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)

    • Hugh Steers Two Men and a Woman, 1992 Oil on canvas 60 x 57 in (152.4 x 144.78 cm) Before his death from AIDS-related complications in 1995, Hugh Steers created a series of emotionally-charged paintings that directly or obliquely address the devastation of the epidemic. These melancholy images amplify the artist's own hopes and fears, exploring diverse issues like mortality, isolation, defiance, and compassion. Emerging from this body of work, Two Men and a Woman (1992) depicts a woman bathing a man in a bathtub as another figure assists. Suffused with a tenderness wrought from suffering, the composition's soft light and exaggerated perspective underscore the poignancy of the scene, as well as the nude man's vulnerability. Ultimately, the touching image recalls Steers's assertion, "A lot of my art has to do with that primal idea of drawing a painting of the hunt on the side of the cave. … It's like a conjuring. I would like to be able to act or have someone care about me the way some of the people in my paintings act or care about each other. It's as if painting it will make it become real."
      Hugh Steers
      Two Men and a Woman, 1992
      Oil on canvas
      60 x 57 in (152.4 x 144.78 cm)
       
       
       
       
       

      Before his death from AIDS-related complications in 1995, Hugh Steers created a series of emotionally-charged paintings that directly or obliquely address the devastation of the epidemic. These melancholy images amplify the artist's own hopes and fears, exploring diverse issues like mortality, isolation, defiance, and compassion.

       

      Emerging from this body of work, Two Men and a Woman (1992) depicts a woman bathing a man in a bathtub as another figure assists. Suffused with a tenderness wrought from suffering, the composition's soft light and exaggerated perspective underscore the poignancy of the scene, as well as the nude man's vulnerability. Ultimately, the touching image recalls Steers's assertion, "A lot of my art has to do with that primal idea of drawing a painting of the hunt on the side of the cave. … It's like a conjuring. I would like to be able to act or have someone care about me the way some of the people in my paintings act or care about each other. It's as if painting it will make it become real."

    Close
  • Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)

    Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)

    • Hugh Steers Straps, 1993 Oil on paper 15 x 11 1/8 in (38.1 x 28.42 cm) During his short, yet prolific career as a painter, Hugh Steers created raw, figurative paintings and works on paper that reflected the realities-the fear, alienation, isolation, and hunger for companionship-of life under the specter of a devastating disease. Although Steers's subjects are often sick and vulnerable, they are still imbued with a defiant eroticism that challenges the ravages of AIDS. In Straps (1993), the artist captures a man changing the dressing on a thigh lesion, a common symptom of the advancing virus. Limned in the soft light of the bathroom, his elegantly bowed and muscled form is suffused with an affirmative physicality that undercuts his illness.
      Hugh Steers
      Straps, 1993
      Oil on paper
      15 x 11 1/8 in (38.1 x 28.42 cm)
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       

       

      During his short, yet prolific career as a painter, Hugh Steers created raw, figurative paintings and works on paper that reflected the realities-the fear, alienation, isolation, and hunger for companionship-of life under the specter of a devastating disease. Although Steers's subjects are often sick and vulnerable, they are still imbued with a defiant eroticism that challenges the ravages of AIDS. In Straps (1993), the artist captures a man changing the dressing on a thigh lesion, a common symptom of the advancing virus. Limned in the soft light of the bathroom, his elegantly bowed and muscled form is suffused with an affirmative physicality that undercuts his illness. 

    Close
    • Hugh Steers Clean Up, 1987 Oil on gessoed paper 14 7/8 x 11 3/8 in (37.85 x 28.96 cm) Hugh Steers created work that was designed, in his own words, "to draw the viewer in through the lure of a comfortingly recognizable style and then confront him with a subject matter of a challenging nature." This subject matter, while rarely explicit, always obliquely dealt with AIDS and the devastation of the epidemic, touching on various themes, including loneliness and alienation, as well articulating the fear of one's body slowly succumbing to a deadly disease. In Clean Up (1987), Steers paints a nude man cleaning up after another, who has passed out on the bathroom floor. Emphasizing the passed out figure's vulnerability, the artist underscores the havoc AIDS wrought in even the most intimate of spheres as its victims and their loved ones were forced to confront the grim realities of the illness. At the same time, for Steers, bathrooms-spaces that are simultaneously sterile and dirty, private and universal-typified the disease. As he argued, "it ties in with the illness. The bathrooms represent culture and instinct in collision. … America, has a horror of it and an obsession with cleanliness and mortality."
      Hugh Steers
      Clean Up, 1987
      Oil on gessoed paper
      14 7/8 x 11 3/8 in (37.85 x 28.96 cm)
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       

      Hugh Steers created work that was designed, in his own words, "to draw the viewer in through the lure of a comfortingly recognizable style and then confront him with a subject matter of a challenging nature." This subject matter, while rarely explicit, always obliquely dealt with AIDS and the devastation of the epidemic, touching on various themes, including loneliness and alienation, as well articulating the fear of one's body slowly succumbing to a deadly disease.

       

      In Clean Up (1987), Steers paints a nude man cleaning up after another, who has passed out on the bathroom floor. Emphasizing the passed out figure's vulnerability, the artist underscores the havoc AIDS wrought in even the most intimate of spheres as its victims and their loved ones were forced to confront the grim realities of the illness. At the same time, for Steers, bathrooms-spaces that are simultaneously sterile and dirty, private and universal-typified the disease. As he argued, "it ties in with the illness. The bathrooms represent culture and instinct in collision. … America, has a horror of it and an obsession with cleanliness and mortality."

    Close
    • Hugh Steers Bandages, 1992 Signed, titled, and dated on verso Oil on canvas 59 7/8 x 41 7/8 in (152.15 x 106.43 cm) In Bandages (1992), Steers paints a male figure, nude except for diaper-like bandages, examining his neck in a bedroom mirror. The ambiguous image is haunted by the specter of AIDS. The disease is obliquely referenced not just by the bandages the man wears, but also by his actions-studying his lymph nodes to see if they are swollen-and the three large bottles of pills that rest on the desk in his room. Capturing the precarity and uncertainty of the illness, Steers's canvas evokes the emotional devastation of the epidemic, in which individuals were forced to confront the vicissitudes of the disease alone with little hope of recovery.
      Hugh Steers
      Bandages, 1992
      Signed, titled, and dated on verso
      Oil on canvas
      59 7/8 x 41 7/8 in (152.15 x 106.43 cm)
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       

      In Bandages (1992), Steers paints a male figure, nude except for diaper-like bandages, examining his neck in a bedroom mirror. The ambiguous image is haunted by the specter of AIDS. The disease is obliquely referenced not just by the bandages the man wears, but also by his actions-studying his lymph nodes to see if they are swollen-and the three large bottles of pills that rest on the desk in his room. Capturing the precarity and uncertainty of the illness, Steers's canvas evokes the emotional devastation of the epidemic, in which individuals were forced to confront the vicissitudes of the disease alone with little hope of recovery.

    Close
    • Hugh Steers Flag, Megaphone, 1992 Signed, titled, and dated on verso Oil on canvas 72 x 58 1/8 in (182.88 x 147.64 cm) Steers maintained a commitment to figuration throughout his career, cut dramatically short by AIDS at the age of 32. Flag, Megaphone (1992) marks a departure from Steers's usual domestic scenes. Alluding to the US government's inaction in the wake of the AIDS crisis, the image features a seated man perched on a blank tv, which broadcasts nothing, contemplating an American flag-festooned megaphone and microphone, which amplify silence. Speaking to Steers's own frustration with the national response to AIDS-in 1991, he wrote an outraged letter to President Bush for declining to appear at the Sixth National AIDS Conference and going instead to a fundraising event for the homophobic senator Jesse Helms-the image marks one of Steers's more overt political statements.
      Hugh Steers
      Flag, Megaphone, 1992
      Signed, titled, and dated on verso
      Oil on canvas
      72 x 58 1/8 in (182.88 x 147.64 cm)
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
      Steers maintained a commitment to figuration throughout his career, cut dramatically short by AIDS at the age of 32. Flag, Megaphone (1992) marks a departure from Steers's usual domestic scenes. Alluding to the US government's inaction in the wake of the AIDS crisis, the image features a seated man perched on a blank tv, which broadcasts nothing, contemplating an American flag-festooned megaphone and microphone, which amplify silence. Speaking to Steers's own frustration with the national response to AIDS-in 1991, he wrote an outraged letter to President Bush for declining to appear at the Sixth National AIDS Conference and going instead to a fundraising event for the homophobic senator Jesse Helms-the image marks one of Steers's more overt political statements.
    Close
    • Hugh Steers Official Letter, 1990 Signed, titled, and dated on verso Oil on canvas 50 x 44 1/8 in (127 x 112.01 cm) In Official Letter (1990), Hugh Steers paints a woman wearing a bag over her head. Through its reference to hooding, the composition draws parallels between an execution and a positive HIV diagnosis while metaphorically referencing the US government's willful blindness: its refusal to acknowledge the devastation of the AIDS crisis. In the early 1990s, Steers painted a series of images which feature figures wearing paper bags over their heads. Fellow artist and friend Julie Heffernan observes that Steers' bag figures were indicative of a larger stylistic shift that was occurring in the artist's practice as he began to create images that directly addressed aspects of AIDS. "A bag over the head means you're shifting to a different kind of head, a different kind of persona that you want to paint," Heffernan explains. "You put a bag over your head because you literally don't know what you look like in this new incarnation that is fomenting."
      Hugh Steers
      Official Letter, 1990
      Signed, titled, and dated on verso
      Oil on canvas
      50 x 44 1/8 in (127 x 112.01 cm)
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
      In Official Letter (1990), Hugh Steers paints a woman wearing a bag over her head. Through its reference to hooding, the composition draws parallels between an execution and a positive HIV diagnosis while metaphorically referencing the US government's willful blindness: its refusal to acknowledge the devastation of the AIDS crisis. In the early 1990s, Steers painted a series of images which feature figures wearing paper bags over their heads. Fellow artist and friend Julie Heffernan observes that Steers' bag figures were indicative of a larger stylistic shift that was occurring in the artist's practice as he began to create images that directly addressed aspects of AIDS. "A bag over the head means you're shifting to a different kind of head, a different kind of persona that you want to paint," Heffernan explains. "You put a bag over your head because you literally don't know what you look like in this new incarnation that is fomenting."
    Close
  • Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021) (View more details about this item in a popup).
    Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021) (View more details about this item in a popup).
    Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021) (View more details about this item in a popup).

    Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)                                                  

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© Alexander Gray Associates
Online Viewing Rooms by Artlogic

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