Bobby Busnach’s Never-Before-Seen Photos Capture Queer Communion and DIY Artistry

In 1974, an aspiring photographer named Bobby Busnach and his best friend, Geraldine “Gerry” Visco, made their Upper West Side apartment in New York City’s crumbling Park Hotel a photo studio. For the next six years, the two friends shot their creative, queer community all around the home, wearing Vivienne Westwood and Stephen Burrows and glam makeup looks, giving the work an elevated but still intimate feeling. Fast-forward to 2019, when the creative director and writer Seana Redmond was working on a documentary about Fiorruci, another label Busnach and Visco had their tribe of merry misfits model in the softly lit flat. During her research phase, Redmond came across a photo of Visco that Busnach had snapped. “I managed to track down Bobby via Facebook, and it turned out he had boxes of unseen pictures from the ’70s,” Redmond says. “Bobby used to cross paths with Nan Goldin and David Armstrong at The Otherside bar; they had mutual friends.” Two years after exchanging weekly emails and regularly talking on the phone, Busnach died suddenly. “Not only had I lost a working partner, I had lost a friend,” Redmond adds. “We never met physically, but our creative minds did. I flew to his memorial to meet his friends and estranged family.”

The result: All of Us Stars, a new book published by Reference Point, which features Busnach’s previously unseen photographs from his enormous archive. The precious photographs capture a distinct moment in history, especially for the LGBTQ+ community—a period before the AIDS epidemic, when artistic freedom ruled and had no boundaries.

“I believe Bobby’s story will inspire many,” Redmond, who edited the book, says. “It’s a story of never giving up on one’s creative vision, no matter how long it might take.” Below, get a peek at the book, now available at Printed Matter and at select stores in New York, London, and L.A.