‘Night and Day’ at Albert Merola Gallery

Opening Friday, July 2nd and running through July 28th at Albert Merola Gallery is “Night and Day,” a group show with works spanning mediums, generations, and geography.

Paintings by celebrated local artists Helen Miranda Wilson and the late Pat de Groot will hang alongside photographs by David Armstrong, Lyle Ashton Harris, Matías Alvial, and, notably, Peter Hujar, who will have his own show-within-a-show in the back room of the gallery.

Hujar, who died of AIDS in 1987, is one of the most admired American photographers. An artist who did little to promote or commercialize his art, he produced a large body of work that documents the bohemian world of ’70s and ’80s New York City. Among the eight Hujar photographs in this smaller show are Dog in Provincetown Street and David Wojnarowicz Manhattan Night (II), a quiet portrait of the famed writer, artist, AIDS activist, and lover of Hujar. The photo, left is © Peter Hujar Archive LLC.

In the larger show, visitors may also be drawn to the single photogravure print by Vija Celmins, Night Sky 2 (Reversed), a negative skyscape that resembles the sand of a Cape Cod beach. —Will Powers