Archetypal Media Image: Leather

Hal Fisher is an art critic and museum professional. For a decade, when he was in San Francisco studying photography (1975–1984), he was also a visual artist. His close ties to the gay communities in the Castro and Haight-Ashbury neighbourhoods gave rise to Gay Semiotics, a pioneering work in conceptual photography that introduces the language of structuralist theory and linguistics into photographic practice. First exhibited in 1977, the series presents a visual analysis of the communication codes among gay men in the 1970s. Fisher adopts a formal, objective aesthetic, almost a documentary style, through which he approaches various gay archetypes, their styles of dress and BDSM culture from an almost anthropological perspective. He superimposes explanatory texts in an ironic, deliberately banal tone over these images, creating a ‘lexicon of attraction’ intended for the uninitiated, midway between sociological study and cultural parody, revealing the development of a subculture while portraying its counter-audiences.

Raúl Martínez Arranz