Object Details
- Artist
- Peter Hujar, 1934 - 1987
- Sitter
- Susan Sontag, 16 Jan 1933 - 28 Dec 2004
- Exhibition Label
- Born New York City
- Susan Sontag’s desire to accomplish what she termed “self-transendence” coincided with the emergence of a 1960s counterculture. She became an international icon after the 1964 publication of her essay “Notes on ‘Camp,’” a study of the aesthetics of artifice and popular culture. Soon thereafter, Against Interpretation (1966), a volume of her critical writings, reinforced her status.
- During the 1980s, Sontag chronicled the impact of the AIDS epidemic on artists and intellectuals in such pieces as “The Way We Live Now” (1986), which she penned for the New Yorker. In a later work, Regarding the Pain of Others (2003), she explored the disconnect between images of war, the experiences they represent, and the audiences that consume those images. The book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Throughout Sontag’s life, she was dedicated to freedom of expression and the advancement of literature, which she declared “the passport to enter a larger life; that is, the zone of freedom.”
- Nacida en la Ciudad de Nueva York
- La aspiración de Susan Sontag a lo que llamó la “autotrascendencia” coincidió con el surgimiento de la contracultura de los años sesenta. Sontag se convirtió en ícono internacional luego de publicar en 1964 su ensayo “Notas sobre lo camp”, un estudio de la estética del artificio y la cultura popular. Su posición pronto se consolidó con Contra la interpretación (1966), un volume de sus textos críticos. Durante la década de 1980, Sontag hizo la crónica de la epidemia del SIDA entre los artistas e intelectuales con ensayos como “Cómo vivimos ahora” (1986), escrito para The New Yorker. En Ante el dolor de los demás (2003) exploró la disociación entre las imágenes de la guerra, las experiencias que representan y los públicos que las consumen. El libro resultó finalista del Premio del Círculo Nacional de Críticos Literarios. Sontag dedicó su vida a promover la libertad de expresión y el avance de la literatura, la cual definió como “el pasaporte a una vida más amplia, es decir, la zona de la libertad”.
- Credit Line
- National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
- 1975
- Object number
- NPG.2005.33
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Copyright
- © The Peter Hujar Archive, LLC
- Type
- Photograph
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions
- Image: 37.1 x 37.6cm (14 5/8 x 14 13/16")
- Sheet: 50.3 x 40.3cm (19 13/16 x 15 7/8")
- Mat: 71.1 x 55.9cm (28 x 22")
- Place
- United States\New York\Kings\New York
- See more items in
- National Portrait Gallery Collection
- Exhibition
- Her Story: A Century of Women Writers
- On View
- NPG, South Gallery 120
- National Portrait Gallery
- Topic
- Interior
- Susan Sontag: Female
- Susan Sontag: Literature\Writer
- Susan Sontag: Performing Arts\Director\Motion Pictures
- Susan Sontag: Literature\Writer\Novelist
- Susan Sontag: Performing Arts\Director\Theater
- Susan Sontag: Literature\Writer\Playwright
- Portrait
- Record ID
- npg_NPG.2005.33
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/sm4b1970ec4-b0c0-41b1-9a8a-227d606a3214
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