Twenty two years ago, art collector Wheelock (“Lock”) Whitney discovered Hugh Steers. Walking down Thompson Street, Lock froze when he spotted Hugh's Cobalt Heels through the window of Richard Anderson Fine Arts. With that purchase in 1992 began a decades long commitment to Steers and his art. Collaborating with Lock on Visual AIDS' forthcoming catalogue raissonné of Hugh Steers has deeply expanded my understanding of the artist’s work. From 1984 to 1995, he produced over 475 paintings in addition to an extensive material of drawings. Working so intimately with this material, I have begun to grasp his growth as an artist overtime. While Lock feels the paintings produced between 1993and 1994 evidence the moment when “Hugh really hit his stride,” I am drawn to earlier works that seem to foreshadow something like the epidemic. While his work from the early 1990s deals most directly with AIDS, one can see traces of similar themes in his pieces as early as 1986.
My initial reaction to the inclusion of Hugh Steers in the Ephemera as Evidence exhibit was one of concern. I worried that his grand two-dimensional works on canvas might not lend themselves in an obvious way to an exhibit focused on traces and residues. Searching for the best way to represent him in this framework, I began to look into Hugh’s lesser-known works. During this process, the subject of his art took a backseat to the materials he chose to use. The relationship between paint and paper in his sketches opened up a different field of consideration. There is something raw and exciting about Hugh Steers’ oil on paper works. They communicate an energetic potential. These smaller works differ from those bold canvas paintings that offer a large scale play between strength and fragility. While each worn on canvas investigates the idea of privacy, the materiality of the works on paper suggests to me something more private.Perhaps this is because I know that Hugh chose to show only a small number of his drawings, storing most of them at his studio and occasionally gifting them to close friends.
This exhibit includes both sketches that led to full-scale works on canvas and drawings that were meant to stay on paper. The latter is a different kind of ephemera, embodying the epitome of potential. Although many of his drawings are from his earlier years and do not deal with AIDS so explicitly, my reaction to them is perhaps more visceral than it is to the devastating beauty of the later works. I can still feel the energy vibrating off the page as if they were just completed. There is a creative fire transported from the body of the artist and captured on paper. These sketches—in charcoal, black ink, watercolor and oil—excite me. The drawings, with their suggestion of swift execution, communicate a sense of urgency to me. It feels as though they were born out of creative necessity. There is something crucial here in the preservation of materials that suggest a kind of immediate relationship to the deceased.