Chloe Sherman: Renegades. San Francisco: The 1990s

A Candid Portrait of the 1990s New Wave of Queer Culture

'I carried my camera everywhere at the time. Photography was a casual, spontaneous, integrated part of my communication with somebody - it was built into the fabric of my life.' - Chloe Sherman, The Guardian

In the 1990s, queer youth, outcasts and artists, flocked to San Francisco to find one another and to experiment with art, self-expression, style, and gender. Rent was affordable, paving the way for queer bars, clubs, tattoo shops, galleries, cafes, bookstores, and women-owned businesses to emerge. A new wave of feminism embraced gender bending, and butch/femme culture flourished. The Mission District was the center of this queer cultural renaissance, and the feeling of community was palpable. Chloe Sherman was both a member of this community and an ardent visual chronicler. Her documentary photographic work on 35mm film stems from a commitment to capturing the vibrancy, tenderness, individuality, resilience, and joy within this subculture that was derided by mainstream society. Distilling the spirit of the time, her debut monograph is a candid portrait of a vibrant era that connects current and future generations to the pulse of San Francisco at a pivotal chapter in queer history.

Sherman affectionately documents a pivotal moment in recent queer history, during which creativity thrived outside of the mainstream.--Carla Valdivia Nakatani "The New York Times: T List"
Each of these photos possesses a certain fascinating, hard-to-define almost religious mystery which gives those who look at them a direct route into an era of freedom, an era of joy.-- "Harper's Bazaar France"
Renegades' captures the vibrant chaos of a bygone era, where every corner held a story, and every gathering defied convention.--Crispin Long "New Yorker"
The images in "Renegades" depict youth, joy and the era's rebellious aesthetic, whether in raucous nights out, intense and intimate moments between couples or seemingly-spontaneous glances at the camera.--Suyin Haynes "CNN: Style"
While queer history often gets erased from mainstream memory, "Renegades" stands as a monument to this vanguard in the Mission that was figuring out the progressive politics that many now take for granted.--Brandon Yu "San Francisco Chronicle"
Chloe Sherman offers a deliciously raw look into one of the most turbulent periods for the city's queer community, which was vibrant not only in America but also globally.--Max Wiener "Musée"
Sherman's colorful, intimate, impulsive and affectionate photos speak loudly for the wild, untethered souls in them, as well as the era they were living through.--Rae Alexandra "KQED"
Sherman combined her appreciation of formal art with a raw documentary style, capturing the swirl of street and nightlife with a careful eye to composition, colour, and the flow of movement across the frame.--Madeleine Pollard "AnOther"

CHLOE SHERMAN (*1969, New York City) arrived in San Francisco in 1991 and earned her BFA in Photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work has been exhibited internationally and featured in magazines such as Rolling Stone and Interview. Her documentary photography is deeply influenced by her fine arts training.

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