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Karen Knorr's best photograph: repose in a gentlemen’s club

Karen Knorr's best photograph: repose in a gentlemen’s club. ‘There’s a frisson of postcoital tenderness. But homosexuality was very much taboo in these circles’

I took this shot in Brooks’s, a gentlemen’s club in London, in 1982 during the Falklands war. Margaret Thatcher’s government had been looking relatively weak. The Falklands offered her an opportunity to cement her position, and war bought her a second term. To photograph this hidden world of power and aristocratic privilege at this pivotal moment was eye-opening.

The image was published in a series called The Gentlemen with a quote below: “The recapture of the territory is no more than an Appetiser to the big Match.” It quotes Sandy Woodward, the British commander who ordered the HMS Conqueror to bomb and sink the General Belgrano, an Argentinian cruiser. His words captured something of the time – the sabre-rattling of a certain class of people.

I grew up in relative affluence in Puerto Rico, and didn’t understand or care for the intricacies of British class hierarchies. I didn’t know what a gentlemen’s club was until I came to London to study. What did people do there? And why were they just for men?

At first glance, the shot looks like an archetypal image of aristocratic power. But there’s irony to it. The men in the photograph aren’t members: one was a secretary, the other was the man whose job it was to wind up all the clocks. This was a reconstruction of something I may have glimpsed through the windows of the smoking room one day. But the men in it were servants.

There’s also a frisson and postcoital tenderness. The standing man could be looking down at his lover. But homosexuality was very much taboo in these circles, even though the environment is built around the bonds formed between men. In these settings, as elsewhere those bonds are vital to the power structures of the group. But here it looks more like tenderness.

I had to enter through the back door. I would rarely stay beyond 9pm. I had to be invisible.

I was interested in patriarchy, along with power and class and the divisions they create, but I hope the irony in this image conveys that things aren’t what they seem. The project taught me that there aren’t goodies and baddies.

As a woman, I had a great deal of difficulty getting into the clubs. I only got into Brooks’s because I was introduced to a member through the man who sold sandwiches outside the university where I was studying. Even weirder, the member he introduced me to was in fact Lord Falkland – in the middle of the Falklands war.

It felt like entering a museum, and it’s beautiful in a Regency style. The paintings and photographs that line the walls are by some of Europe’s finest artists, often depicting some of Europe’s most powerful men. Everything is curated to convey a sense of power and heritage. I had to enter through the back door. I would rarely stay beyond 9pm. I had to be invisible.

Related: Masculinities review: men laid bare from boardroom to battlefield

Only once did I get into trouble. I was taking a shot with a really long exposure, and one of the members was about to move across the frame. I shouted: “Stop!” He didn’t respond well to a young woman telling him what to do – in fact he totally freaked out. But it mostly went without a hitch. I was a young woman with an American accent, so I think they thought I was slightly exotic, or at least they knew I wasn’t going to break anything.

Those Thatcher years feel distant but resurgent. During the 80s, it felt as if there was an immense opening up of society, but suddenly it feels as if society is tightening up again. There’s a new authoritarianism creeping back into politics. It’s not history repeating itself – I don’t think it ever does – but the same themes crop up in new versions.

We seem to be in a moment where British nostalgia and reverence for a certain aristocratic past feels uniquely powerful. It’s concerning. Nostalgia can be sentimental, but it can also be used to exclude or dominate.

Karen Knorr’s CV

Born: Frankfurt, Germany, 1954.

Trained: Franconia College, New Hampshire; L’Atelier, Paris; Polytechnic of Central London, University of Derby.

Influences: Victor Burgin, Diane Arbus, Mary Kelly, Bill Brandt and Walker Evans.

High point: “My advocacy for women and diversity in photography.”

Low point: “Brexit, greater division in politics, and the increase in authoritarian populism in the UK and US.”

Top tip: “Take risks, dive in, research and explore as you photograph. Then connect with the photographic community and share your knowledge”

  • Masculinities: Liberation Through Photography is at the Barbican, London, until 17 May.