Peter Hujar, “John Erdman and Gary Schneider at Mohonk Mountain House,” 1984. Photo courtesy and © 2022 The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Photographer and master printer, Gary Schneider founded Schneider-Erdman Inc, an East Village-based photo lab, with his partner John Erdman in 1981.
David Wojnarowicz and his mentor, the photographer Peter Hujar, printed exhibition photographs exclusively at Schneider-Erdman. The lab printed some of David’s iconic works, such as “Buffalos,” “The Sex Series,” and “Face in Dirt.”
The lab’s work has been featured in Harvard Art Museums’ exhibition “Analog Culture: Printer’s Proofs from the Schneider-Erdman Photography Lab, 1981–2001.”
Schneider and Erdman were good friends of David’s and supporters of his career, and they worked entirely on barter. “I loved him so much,” Schneider says, “and I loved the work, so we did just an exchange. It was always just an exchange.”
Gary Schneider shares memories of David in the audio clips below.
Interview excerpts appear courtesy of The Artist Archives Initiative’s David Wojnarowicz Knowledge Base.
