The Piers From Here is a publication exploring the themes arising from the exhibition of the same title at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool. The New York piers played a pivotal role in the works of photographer Alvin Baltrop and ‘anarchitect’ Gordon Matta-Clark who both regularly frequented these dilapidated areas of the city.
The New York City piers, and many other piers and docklands around the world became defunct and derelict in 1970s as a result of the oil crisis and the development of trans-Atlantic air transport. This allowed for a new and invisible population to take over these spaces in Manhattan and use them for all sorts of activities such as gay cruising, squatting, and drug dealing but they also brought together an underground community of visual artists, musicians, filmmakers, performers and photographers.
Manhattan in the 1970s was a place and a time of political and cultural upheaval.
