A collection of photographs of Manhattan clubbers making their way home on Sunday mornings are currently on show at one of New York’s leading art museums.

The collection, Manhattan Sunday predominantly captures LGBTI club goers. It is the work of photographer Richard Renaldi.

In a phone call, he told GSN that he wanted to capture the juxtaposition between leaving the hedonism of the nightclub world and staggering out into the stillness of Manhattan on a Sunday morning.

‘It’s the only time of the week when things are really at a standstill. I wanted to capture the contrast between the stimulation and hedonism inside of the club and then the transformation into very different spaces: the grandeur and beauty of the city.

‘You’re in that other realm, maybe a bit of an altered state: going from the club into this different, peaceful zone, these quiet mid-town streets.’

The series spans 2010 to 2016. Renaldi began by venturing out from 4am, but expanded this later to take in a greater breadth of the night.

The exhibition is accompanied by a book that includes over 130 photos. It starts with early shots taken inside clubs from around midnight, and then tracks forward through the morning – concluding with an image of a man drinking a glass of water in a diner at 10am.

Nightclub refuge

Renaldi was born in 1968 in Chicago. He moved to New York City in 1986 to study. He quickly threw himself, like many young gay men before and after him, on to the club scene.

‘It was definitely important,’ he says, when asked how the gay scene helped him explore his own identity.

‘I think, especially if you read some of the editorial writings after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, a lot of people talked about how nightclubs provided a safe space. They were an alternate family.

‘That really resonated with me. This is a place that you can go and express yourself freely and openly with people that are like yourself. It’s a refuge from the broader culture and expected norms.

‘They’re also an outlet for creativity. I think a lot of people use nightlife to create and explore other parts of their identity, and celebrate diversity or outlandishness: a place to get your freak on. Those were the sort of things I was interested in celebrating through this project and shining a light on.’

In the book, Renaldi has written an essay on his motivation behind the project, and his own history on the club circuit.

He recounts an experience of leaving the Sound Factory in the late 80s/early 90s. Walking home, he bumped into an older man named Larry on the streets of Chelsea.

‘He told us he was a custodian from Staten Island, that he liked to come to Chelsea on Sunday mornings to watch young men leaving the clubs.

‘He said that when he was young himself, in the early sixties, he had been so fearful of being identified as homosexual that he had exaggerated the erectness of his posture, assuming the poise and demeanor of a drill sergeant, causing injury to his body and condemning himself to a life of physical pain.’

The encounter made Renaldi think deeper about the way gay men seek solace, and escape, through clubbing and dancing.

Muscles, affirmation and AIDS

He himself threw himself in to the gym: ‘In preparation for being back at the clubs each weekend, my shirt off, seeking affirmation.

‘The armor we muscle boys created for ourselves was a bulwark against AIDS, a talismanic undertaking that just might, we believed, deliver us from our fear of the wasting and death that was everywhere around us.’

Renaldi became HIV positive. He says that although the series doesn’t explicitly explore HIV, it’s a factor in the images simply because the series focuses on gay clubbing.

‘HIV is part of my personal story, and my experience of going out was initially encumbered with the mortal dread of catching HIV and AIDS,’ he says.

‘Nightlife really changed from the late 70s to the mid 80s, and it was the mid-80s when I started going out.

‘Manhattan Sunday, the pictures, don’t really speak about HIV and AIDS, as much as it’s implied. The subject matter is gay nightlife and that was certainly part of the experience for many years.’

Now, he has seen the clubs change again. They became ‘more looser and more sexualized again, until we are at where we are today, where it’s sort of anything goes, especially in the era of advanced HIV therapies.’

‘Trying not to let go’

As he states in the book, he finds himself more distant from the club scene these days, but not quite ready to drop the connection just yet.

‘I am now 48. I am middle-aged and now occupy the same stage of life Larry did when I met him in Chelsea a quarter century ago.

‘I have often wondered what happened to him, if he passed through the doors and joined a community, or simply remained outside, bearing witness.

‘I now find myself returning to the clubs as both participant and observer, trying to remain a part of it still, trying not to let go.’

Manhattan Sunday is at the Eastman Museum until 11 June. Manhattan Sunday can be ordered via renaldi.com

All images: Courtesy of the artist and Benrubi Gallery. © Richard Renaldi