Collection 1950s–1970s

*Blue Handkerchief, Red Handkerchief*

Hal Fischer. Blue Handkerchief, Red Handkerchief. 1977 473

Inkjet print, printed 2014: 12 3/8 × 18 1/2" (31.4 × 47 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Geraldine Murphy Fund. © 2023 Hal Fischer

Artist, Hal Fischer:  I’m not trying to shock. I’m trying to share.

I’m Hal Fischer, and what’s currently being shown in the galleries is a selection from 24 prints that became known as Gay Semiotics.

I take a very simple definition of semiotics—that it’s the study of signs. It’s basically like a sign language. A handkerchief in the back pocket, as you can see in one of my most famous photographs, symbolizes certain kinds of sexual activity. But the function of a handkerchief and what it signifies in this context are very different things.

Photography and language, I view it as very symbiotic. I was always drawing on things or adding language to them or somehow really intervening in the photographic image. I wanted my work to be photographs, but I wanted something that was in a way, I’ll say bland. Like, these could be advertising photographs. And also because of what I was exploring in my community, I really wanted to have images that were not threatening.

From a distance, they would just look very, like, “oh, there’s a nice sort of, what’s that photograph?” And I lure them in. Then they start reading. You get sort of an “uh-oh” moment, because all of a sudden you’re starting to read about sexual practices that perhaps you’re not really keen to know. But then I end it with a joke and I hope to disarm the viewer.

It’s just my nature, with a certain degree of Jewish humor, to poke fun at things and be a bit self-effacing.