Photography “converts the whole world into a cemetery,” wrote Susan Sontag. “Photographers, connoisseurs of beauty, are also—wittingly or unwittingly—the recording-angels of death.” Peter Hujar’s black-and-white portraits capture the dark side. Living in the East Village from the 1960s to the 1980s, he shot his subjects up-close, perfectly poised, even theatrical, and yet touched with enigma. His images came to define the gritty aesthetic of downtown New York, from the turbulent 60s to the AIDS-haunted 80s. Hujar died of the disease in 1987, as did many of the people in his photographs. This show presents his series “Portraits in Life and Death.” —Elena Clavarino