This book originated out of an exhibition that Moyra Davey organized at Galerie Buchholz in Berlin. For this, Moyra Davey delved into Peter Hujar’s archives and emerged mainly with little-known, scarcely seen images. In response to these, Davey created her own images that draw out an idiosyncratic selection of shared subjects. Side by side, the powerfully composed images admire, tease, and enhance one another in the manner of fierce friends, forming a visual exploration of physicality and sexuality that crackles with wit, tenderness, and perspicacity. Spiritually anchored in New York City - even as they range out to rural corners of Quebec and Pennsylvania - these images crystallize tensions between city and country, human and animal. Nudes pose with unruly chickens; human bodies are abstracted toward topography; seascapes and urban landscapes share the same tremulous plasticity. These continuities are punctuated by stark differences of approach: Davey’s self-aware postmodernism against Hujar’s humanism and embrace of darkroom manipulation. The rich dialogue between these photographs is personal and angular, ultimately offering an illuminating reintroduction to each artist through communion with the other’s work. The book contains a new text by Eileen Myles and is published by Mack Books, London.

This latest book by the artist Moyra Davey is based on two related group of works, Les Goddesses (2011) and Hemlock Forest (2016), which each take form through text, photography, and film. Layering introspection and personal narratives with meditations on the lives and works of other writers, filmmakers, and artists—ranging from 18th-century feminist writer and activist Mary Wollstonecraft to Chantal Akerman, and Moyra Davey’s own five sisters. The book is conceived and published in collaboration with the artist and Dancing Foxes Press. The book contains, alongside numerous reproductions, an introductory text by Aveek Sen and transcriptions of the texts for both film projects by the artist.