ARTHUR TRESS – THE RAMBLE
2026-02-09Toward the end of 1968, at the age of twenty-eight, Tress began bringing his Hasselblad camera to the Ramble, an overgrown, derelict woodland in the heart of Central Park that had become a discreet gathering place for gay men and queer people seeking social and erotic contact. Reflecting on the site in 2024, Tress remarked: “It was like a decaying pier in the city. I was always attracted to that kind of urban neglect.”
From his apartment on 72nd Street and Riverside Drive, Tress could reach the Ramble in ten minutes, often passing through on his way to professional appointments or museum exhibitions in the city. The site became both subject and backdrop for Tress’s parallel projects, including “Open Space in the Inner City,” a commissioned environmental portfolio, and a series of surrealist still lifes staged within the Ramble. His photographs from the Ramble range from surreptitious shots of men from a distance to carefully posed tableaux, exploring homoerotic fantasy, longing, and human vulnerability. As Tress explained in conversation with Jordan Tannahill: “I wanted to create a kind of poetic documentary that captured both the real and the imagined, the danger and the beauty of that hidden world.”
Opposite – Biding Time
Exhibition runs through to February 28th, 2026
Clamp
247 West 29th Street, Ground Floor
New York
NY 10001
