Boy-Friends

Boy-Friends (1979) consists of ten photo-text “portraits” of men the artist interacted with over a four-year period in the mid- to late-‘70s. The series marks Fischer’s insistence on the visual equivalence of word and image, with both image and text photographically printed on separate 8 x 10 inch sheets of paper. Boy-Friends continues the photographer’s interest in labeling, in this instance giving each subject an identifying title and an accompanying narrative that strives to “typify” the specific subject and interaction. Fischer conceived the piece and then drew from his repository of negatives, never actually taking a photograph specifically with this series in mind. As such, Boy-Friends exhibits elements of both appropriation and found photography.