Hal Fischer Books

Hal Fischer's Gay Semiotics: A Photographic Study of Visual Coding Among Homosexual Men (1977) is a pivotal work in California conceptual photography. This new edition mirrors the original volume, which featured 24 text-embedded images from Fischer's series. The photographs capture the codes of sexual orientation and identity observed in San Francisco's Castro and Haight Ashbury districts, showcasing sexual signifiers like handkerchiefs and keys, as well as various gay fashion "types" from that era, including "basic gay," "hippie," and "jock." Accompanying the images is Fischer's critical essay, which shares the same wry, anthropological tone as the visual elements. The book gained widespread circulation, resonating with both the gay and conceptual art communities. Fischer emphasized the visual equivalence of word and image, a characteristic of the loose photography and language group that included notable contemporaries in the San Francisco Bay Area. Initially published as an artist's book in 1978 by NFS Press, it emerged during a time when gay individuals were compelled to evaluate and defend their lifestyles. Over three decades later, it remains a powerful statement from within the gay community, reflecting a historical moment just before the onset of the AIDS crisis.

1970s Photographs by Lew Thomas, Donna-Lee Phillips, and Hal Fischer Erin O'Toole (ed.) In the early 1970s, Lew Thomas set out to disrupt photography in San Francisco. Tired of the mystical thinking and emotionalism that had underscored Bay Area photography since the 1940s, Thomas pursued a photographic practice grounded in ideas gleaned from conceptual art and Structuralist philosophy. A cohort of other photographers, including Donna-Lee Phillips and Hal Fischer, embraced Thomas’ mission, joining him in what became known as the ‘Photography and Language’ movement, named after a book and group exhibition of the same title produced by Thomas in 1976. Thomas, Phillips and Fischer were all extremely active in the mid to late 1970s. In addition to making their own artwork, they published essays, reviewed shows and organized exhibitions. Under the name NFS Press, Thomas published a number of books designed by Phillips, including Structural(ism) and Photography (1978), which featured Thomas’ work; Eros and Photography (1977), which was edited by Phillips, and two books of Fischer’s work: Gay Semiotics (1978) and 18th Near Castro Street x 24 (1979).