Vandals defaced the Terry Konrath photo exhibit on Sunset Strip featuring photographs of drag queens during Halloween in West Hollywood. The Some of the images on the vinyl banners installed along the Sunset Boulevard-facing fence line of William S. Hart Park, 8341 De Longpre Avenue have burn marks, scratches and graffiti.
West Hollywood’s Arts Division debuted the new art exhibit featuring photographs by the artist on May 1st. The banner exhibit measuring 6.5 ft. (H) x 180.5 ft. (W) will run through December 1, 2023.
Photo by Mike Pingel for WEHO TIMES
Photo by Mike Pingel for WEHO TIMES
Photo by Mike Pingel for WEHO TIMES
Photo by Mike Pingel for WEHO TIMES
Photo by Mike Pingel for WEHO TIMESThis body of work was created in 1988 during the second incarnation of the West Hollywood Halloween Street Celebration back when Santa Monica Boulevard acted as a grand catwalk for Drag Queens who strutted their stuff and broke out in spontaneous dance routines for people who lined the sides of the boulevard in what was then known as West Hollywood’s Boystown. West Hollywood Halloween in 1988 would later become the massive West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval we see today.
“I just think the energy of the country just sucks,” she told ABC7 Eyewitness News. “It’s like America needs to get it together, I don’t know why people have to be so nasty to each other,”
She added that she fears people who cannot see past hate for the LGBTQ community.
“Some of the images were burned and they were gouged with some kind of instrument. It just makes me sad,” she said.
Terry Konrath is a documentary photographer and former club kid who quietly photographed the city with her 35mm film camera during the late 1980s and early 1990s, while she was studying her craft with Joann Callis, Eileen Cowin, Peter Reiss, Mary Lloyd Estrin and Allen Sekula. She earned a BFA and an MFA in fine arts and photography from CalArts. Konrath considers her work Terry’s as part of the “slow” photography movement, which encourages thoughtfully building relationships with her subjects. Recently, she completed an artist in residency in Louisiana where she photographed farmers who are using sustainable methods in their practice. She continues to use her 35mm camera. Shortly before the residency she installed a mural for the arts council in Morganton, North Carolina.
