Captivating photos of queer glamour in 70s New York

New York in the 1970s is still one of the most mythologised periods of queer history. The years between the Stonewall riots and the Aids crisis saw an explosion in political activism, nightlife, creative vitality and unbridled hedonism, which many of those fortunate enough to survive the following decade would later look back to as a kind of lost idyll. All of Us Stars (published by Reference Point) offers a fresh new perspective on this era, collecting hundreds of shots by photographer Bobby Busnach, some of which have never before been published. 

Busnach, who died in 2019, was a fascinating character. After surviving an abusive household and a year-long stint in a mental hospital, he stole his first camera during a burglary and started taking photographs at the age of 15. He first began documenting the gay scene at The Other Side, a bar in Boston made famous by Nan Goldin (who in 1993 released a photography book of the same name). It was during this time that he met Geraldine ‘Gerry’ Visco, an aspiring actress who would become his friend, collaborator, and greatest muse. 

The pair moved to New York together in 1973, when they were just seventeen, and Busnach landed at an apartment in the Upper West Side, where all of the shots collected in All of Us Stars were taken. Today, it seems incredible to think that a teenage runaway,  someone who was DJ’ing and hustling as a sex worker to make ends meet, could afford to live opposite Central Park in a building with a concierge and lobby chandeliers, even one which was rundown and infested with roaches. 

This contrast between out-of-time elegance and a life on the margins is at the heart of All of us Stars. Taken between 1974 and 1980, the photos capture Bushnach’s group of friends, described by writer Amelia Abraham in one of the book’s two accompanying essays as “hustlers, trans women and club kids”. The effect is powerfully glamorous, with his subjects styled with ball gowns, fascinators, elbow-length gloves and statement earrings, their hair and makeup immaculate – but this glamour often reads as camp, performative if not quite parodic.

Busnach’s work differs from Goldin’s – a contemporary and fellow Boston native who inhabited a similar milieu – because his photos leave “the sex, drugs, violence and dysfunction largely out of the picture”, writes Abraham. Instead, Busnach sought to achieve “cinematic beauty or the facsimile of fame” through carefully staged photoshoots, portraying his subjects not with gritty realism but idealised beauty and elegance. 

The book’s title is taken from a quote by Marilyn Monroe (“We are all of us stars and we deserve to twinkle”), her image appears frequently in the background, watching on like a fairy godmother, and many of the photos feature people dressed like her. As Busnach himself wrote in 2018, he was drawn to Monroe not just as a symbol of glamour but as someone who was innocent and vulnerable, who “fought and struggled to achieve the American Dream only to have it snatched from her grasp”. A similar sense of vulnerability is evident in many of his portraits, however indomitable their subjects appear at first glance.

As curator and art historian Jackson Davidow explains in an accompanying essay, taking pictures in gay bars and clubs was often frowned upon during this period as intrusive or unsafe. Busnach got around this limitation by photographing his subjects at home, a setting which allowed him greater creative control and offered a “safe realm where queer kids could dream up more elaborate forms of expression”. As a result, these images are about nightlife without actually depicting it; there’s a giddy, excitable quality, like the subjects are getting ready or stumbling in from a night out. It’s queer domesticity of a kind, but one with its eye on the door. It looks like a lot of fun.

There’s something timeless about these images (and not just because the outfits still slay). While All of Us Stars captures a specific historical moment, Busnach’s representation of queer friendship, with all its transformative possibilities, is as resonant as ever.

All of Us Stars is published by Reference Point and is available to order here.