Hal Fischer: Gay Semiotics: A Photographic Study of Visual Coding Among Homosexual Men

by Hal Fischer (Photographer)

Hal Fischer’s (born 1950) Gay Semiotics is a seminal work of 1970s California conceptual photography. This new hardbound edition of his celebrated 1978 book, published in a limited edition of 250 signed and numbered copies, reproduces the look and feel of the original. It includes a signed and numbered limited edition archival pigment print of “Street Basic Gay,” one of the most celebrated photographs from the series.

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, Photography, Art

56 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

Reviews

[mlact]

I became interested in gay handkerchief signaling after finding a guide on Pinterest and just so happened to find Gay Semiotics while prepping a library truck at work. This piece identifies fashion as signals among homosexual males, using photography to highlight the five gay archetypal images: classical, natural, western, urbane, and leather. As a young femme queer person, I have very little experience in more traditional gay presentation and found this text useful: presentation-as-communication is obviously very important in queer culture, but I am much more familiar with newer ideas such as "bisexuals cuff their pants" or "nonbinary people dye their hair blue," which manifest more as inside jokes than established rules à la handkerchief placement. Additionally, the photos and research are based in San Francisco, and, having been born in San Francisco, I love any acknowledgement of San Francisco as a historically queer city.

Although it is fairly surface level in terms of analysis due to its short length, Gay Semiotics is a practical look into specifically homosexual male presentation. I appreciate Fischer's attention to Othering (e.g. examining how the western archetype uses clothing normative in mainstream fashion, and the subculture-within-a-subculture status of the leather archetype) and anticipate how Fischer's work can be used in further LGBTQIA+ research — for example, comparing western gay fashion to lesbian fashion, or exploring the role of POC in male homosexual spaces.

[Eilif]

A seminal text in describing gay visual language and signalling. It gets extra points for it’s importance in the canon, however I wish it had gone a bit more in-depth as the text felt very introductory and light on analysis.

[David Ivany]

A quick read, lol. But points to the complexity of negotiating queer life in the 70s. Interesting that so many of the signs remain 50 years later and I would be interested to see what a modern Gay semiotics would look like considering how muddy signifiers are now.

[jesse]

a work of storytelling, graphic design, visual communication, and cultural significance