Peter Berlin – with his brazen, in-your-face sexuality, deliciously tight pants, and that instantly identifiable Prince Valient hairdo – was the personification of gay culture in the decadent 1970s. His compulsive self-portraiture and the gay cult sex films that chronicled his relentless cruising, made him the original King of the Selfies. The images he created from that time are now the new subject of an exhibition at ClampArt gallery in NYC which opened last week. PAPER magazine had a chance to speak to him about the ‘7os, the personae he created, and how gay culture has changed.
What made you decide to do an exhibition after all these years?
It was the brainchild of a friend of mine who tried to convince me to do something with my life. I’m not that Peter Berlin [anymore] that was doing the pictures that one will find on the walls in the gallery, right? So it’s sort of just a very weird feeling for me where I am grateful in a way that there’s an interest. On the other hand, I’m sort of over it, you know?
It doesn’t sound like you’re taking it all too seriously. But did you take it seriously then when you were taking the pictures?
I didn’t see it as [seriously as], for instance, my friend at that time, Robert Mapplethorpe, who took his stuff very serious and he had a goal of wanting to be a good photographer, a known photographer, a successful photographer, and a rich photographer. I just did photographs, self portraits. You know, yeah, that’s how serious I took it. Like the people today with the selfie and an iPhone. That’s what I did. Only that I had to sort of go through a little more difficult procedure.
Do you see at all any narcissism in your self portraits, especially since you were so known for your beauty?
Being narcissistic, I’m so against labels. So you know, I am a pornographer, I am a narcissist, I am, you know, whatever people think I am or what I do. I realized of all the people I met in my life, not one person has seen me as I am. There’s an assumption especially with me, with having done what I have done. It’s a point of discussion.
If people weren’t seeing you as you were, can you talk about the character of Peter Berlin you created?
At the time it was so unusual that a man was doing what women have done for centuries, you know, with the tight dress and the breasts showing. But then when a man is doing it, and that’s exactly what I was doing, then it is something like ‘oh my god.’ So what I realized was, I’m living in a very stupid world, a very frustrated world, a very twisted world. And the older I got, you know, I said, get away from people because it is, you know, not great pleasure to encounter negativity. But I realized how quickly I had to separate that what makes Peter Berlin ‘Peter Berlin,’ that people assumed certain things about me and I realized I had to separate me, Armin, from Peter. But I look back and I say, OK, that image I created there is a nice image. I did a good job, right?
You were emblematic of a period — ’70s, sex, and hedonism. Tell me about when things changed.
What surrounded me then changed in a very, very, very sad, tragic manner because of AIDS. So all my friends died in that era and that made me change. Not so much what I did, but sort of slowly I realized that the world around me changed, the places where I used to have a good time changed. Now it’s a whole different approach to sex. Now it’s happening on the Internet. It started with phone sex and I never was into that. So it was a natural way where I said, OK, thank god that I lived. And was sexually sort of aware in the ’60s ’70s, and ’80s. I had 30 years of great, great expression and great time. And then it just ended — and now I’m thinking about all that.
Could you talk more about the change happening to cruising culture now that so much of it is done online or on apps?
Now I tell you, when I was cruising in the ’60s and the ’70s and ’80s, there were tons, thousands of other people doing exactly the same. I only did it maybe a little bit more effectively. And I was standing out. I created something that was blatantly sexual. Wherever I went, to the parks, to the streets, to the everywhere, people were cruising and I saw all kinds of exciting people. Now it’s over. I can’t even believe I’m sitting with my friend Eric here in San Francisco in a café, more or less every day we have lunch, and I look at the picture on the street and I just can’t believe it. I say, what is happening?
Continue reading at PAPER magazine...
(Photos by Peter Berlin)
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