Jackson Davidow at The Baffler:
What distinguished the relationship between Gefter and Marks—other than the fact that it had lasted an eternity in gay years—was the photography. Inspired by the breathtaking tenderness of Alfred Stieglitz’s portraits of Georgia O’Keeffe, and Emmet Gowin’s of Edith Morris, Gefter, who had recently completed a BFA in photography and painting at the Pratt Institute, set out to document his romance with Marks, who, in turn, always insisted on reciprocating the photographic act. An archive of portraits, spontaneously taken by one another in moments of affection, lust, anxiety, jealousy, and fury, is the point of departure for their dialogues with Denneny. In his 2023 book On Christopher Street: Life, Sex, and Death after Stonewall, Denneny, who died this past April, described his aspiration to “make something like a literary or intellectual version of a Joseph Cornell box, using Philip and Neil’s photographs, the live interviews, and the written self-portraits to capture something—love, passion, and its loss—that I was obsessed with.”
more here.