Archives

Garden of Alice

Posted on

1981

Signed, l.l.

Collage

18 x 12 inches

Sold.

“The Caffe Cino is the beginning! This is it! The major things done in New York were done there, and nowhere else. I don’t give a shit what anybody else says. They’re lying.”
—John Vaccaro

A gay hangout before gay bars were allowed to operate openly, the Caffe Cino, which opened its doors in December 1958, was started by Joe Cino and his boyfriend at the time, the painter Ed Franzen, in a storefront located at 31 Cornelia Street. The core staff consisted initially of Joe Davies, Charles Loubier, and painter/dishwasher Kenny Burgess. Joe Davies recalled, “Tuesday was poetry night and then there was a music night and a dance night, and finally somebody said, well, ‘let’s have a play reading!'” The initial play readings at the Cino evolved into fully staged productions and “Off-Off-Broadway” was born. It was also at the Caffe Cino where the first staged performances offering positive portrayals of homosexuals took place, serving as the foundation and harbinger of American Queer Theater. Together the Cino habitués nearly single-handedly created what would become the gay themed productions that were an integral part of Off-Off-Broadway history. Closely anchored at the center of this inspired madness was the ingenious artist Kenny Burgess. He created the advertising and signage for the theatrical productions throughout the Cino’s lifespan, his hand-painted posters and collages offering a glimpse into the DIY ethos of the venue. The Cino was the cradle of modern gay culture, informing future generations with its fiercely independent spirit, rebelliousness, and creative anarchy. Like so many artistic urban communities whose members lived on into the 1980s, the Caffe Cino alumni suffered heavy losses during the AIDS epidemic. Sadly, Kenny Burgess passed away in 1989.

G.E.

Secrets

Posted on

1981

Signed, l.l.

Collage

12 x 10 inches

Sold.

“The Caffe Cino is the beginning! This is it! The major things done in New York were done there, and nowhere else. I don’t give a shit what anybody else says. They’re lying.”
—John Vaccaro

A gay hangout before gay bars were allowed to operate openly, the Caffe Cino, which opened its doors in December 1958, was started by Joe Cino and his boyfriend at the time, the painter Ed Franzen, in a storefront located at 31 Cornelia Street. The core staff consisted initially of Joe Davies, Charles Loubier, and painter/dishwasher Kenny Burgess. Joe Davies recalled, “Tuesday was poetry night and then there was a music night and a dance night, and finally somebody said, well, ‘let’s have a play reading!'” The initial play readings at the Cino evolved into fully staged productions and “Off-Off-Broadway” was born. It was also at the Caffe Cino where the first staged performances offering positive portrayals of homosexuals took place, serving as the foundation and harbinger of American Queer Theater. Together the Cino habitués nearly single-handedly created what would become the gay themed productions that were an integral part of Off-Off-Broadway history. Closely anchored at the center of this inspired madness was the ingenious artist Kenny Burgess. He created the advertising and signage for the theatrical productions throughout the Cino’s lifespan, his hand-painted posters and collages offering a glimpse into the DIY ethos of the venue. The Cino was the cradle of modern gay culture, informing future generations with its fiercely independent spirit, rebelliousness, and creative anarchy. Like so many artistic urban communities whose members lived on into the 1980s, the Caffe Cino alumni suffered heavy losses during the AIDS epidemic. Sadly, Kenny Burgess passed away in 1989.

G.E.

Timeless Full Moon

Posted on

1981

Collage

15 x 21 inches

Sold.

“The Caffe Cino is the beginning! This is it! The major things done in New York were done there, and nowhere else. I don’t give a shit what anybody else says. They’re lying.”
—John Vaccaro

A gay hangout before gay bars were allowed to operate openly, the Caffe Cino, which opened its doors in December 1958, was started by Joe Cino and his boyfriend at the time, the painter Ed Franzen, in a storefront located at 31 Cornelia Street. The core staff consisted initially of Joe Davies, Charles Loubier, and painter/dishwasher Kenny Burgess. Joe Davies recalled, “Tuesday was poetry night and then there was a music night and a dance night, and finally somebody said, well, ‘let’s have a play reading!'” The initial play readings at the Cino evolved into fully staged productions and “Off-Off-Broadway” was born. It was also at the Caffe Cino where the first staged performances offering positive portrayals of homosexuals took place, serving as the foundation and harbinger of American Queer Theater. Together the Cino habitués nearly single-handedly created what would become the gay themed productions that were an integral part of Off-Off-Broadway history. Closely anchored at the center of this inspired madness was the ingenious artist Kenny Burgess. He created the advertising and signage for the theatrical productions throughout the Cino’s lifespan, his hand-painted posters and collages offering a glimpse into the DIY ethos of the venue. The Cino was the cradle of modern gay culture, informing future generations with its fiercely independent spirit, rebelliousness, and creative anarchy. Like so many artistic urban communities whose members lived on into the 1980s, the Caffe Cino alumni suffered heavy losses during the AIDS epidemic. Sadly, Kenny Burgess passed away in 1989.

G.E.

Let the Record Show

Posted on

1987

Offset poster

34 x 22 inches

Contact gallery for price.

Text at bottom reads: “©1987 THE SILENCE = DEATH PROJECT. Used by permission by ACT UP, The AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power, 135 West 29th St., #10, NYC 10001”

A scarce, early variant of the frequently issued poster.

In July 1987, William Olander (1950-1989), an ACTUP member and curator of the New Museum in New York City, invited ACTUP to make an installation in “…the window by the museum entrance on Broadway”. A neon SILENCE=DEATH symbol crowned the display, with a pink triangle below. The pink triangle was appropriated from the Nazi marker for gay men imprisoned at death camps furthering the analogy between the AIDS crisis and the Holocaust. The neon piece became part of the New Museum’s permanent collection, and the SILENCE=DEATH graphic was widely disseminated through T-shirts, wheat-pastes, and other printed ephemera. The graphic was a reaction to an 1985 editorial in The New York Times written by William F. Buckley, as well as the silence by the Reagan government. Entitled “Let the Record Show” the work featured cardboard silhouettes of six public figures—televangelist Jerry Falwell, columnist William F. Buckley Jr., US Senator Jesse Helms, Cory SerVaas of the Presidential AIDS Commission, an anonymous surgeon, and the Gipper, President Ronald Reagan—posited as AIDS criminals and set against a mural-sized photograph of the Nuremberg trials. Concrete slabs positioned under each figure offered evidence of their crimes, from misrepresentations of AIDS to ignoring the issue altogether as in the case of Reagan’s notorious public silence, in the form of personal quotes. One reacted, for example, to a 1986 editorial in The New York Times by notorious arch-conservative William Buckley, who proposed that all persons with AIDS “…should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users, and on the buttocks, to protect the victimization of other homosexuals.”

G.E.

Literature:
Avram Finkelstein, After Silence: A History of AIDS through Its Images (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2018), p. 26, illus. and Plate 1 (another example)

Postcard illustration of Ethyl Eichelberger’s back

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Postcard illustration of Ethyl Eichelberger’s back with Ken Tisa-designed Ruth Marten tattoo (Photograph by Stanley Stellar)

Contact gallery for price.

Stanley Stellar’s photograph shows the 1980s downtown New York City performance artist Ethyl Eichelberger with her beautiful, large tattoo of an angel in a naive style adapted from a ink and watercolor design by Ken Tisa. Ruth Marten made the tattoo and was an established fixture on the punk art scene in New York City at the time. Marten also created live tattoo art performances and was featured in the now infamous 1978 “Punk Art Show” at Washington Project for the Arts in Washington, DC. It was the first show of punk rock art, and widely considered to be the starting point of the postmodern age.

In an interview with “sang bleu magazine” Ruth Marten discussed her work and the Eichelberger angel: “Ethyl Eichelberger was a sublime creature, an invention of imagination and courage who left prematurely but left his mark, certainly. He came to me with a drawing in hand done by my fellow artist friend Ken Tisa of a wacky dancer with twirling scarves. Ethyl requested it to be tattooed over his large back and, it became an important element in his dramatic monologues from the Greek. He would build up the drama and then turn his body, drop his costume and reveal the design. Ken and I, sitting in the audience, shared an exquisite moment, honored by the vision of this extraordinary man. I was tattooing concurrent with the Gay Liberation era so I had many fabulous gay clients who were using tattoos to express their most libidinous fantasies. Giant Phoenixes emerging above the belt, Grecian scenes, interspecies love making, you name it. Lots of fun before the party ended. I was working during the Punk scene and creating lots of nihilistic tattoos like bar codes and the early typographic designs.”

G.E.

s.n.a.f.u. (Ethyl Eichelberger as Medea)

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New Years Eve, 1981

Inscribed and kissed by both Ethyl Eichelberger and Agosto Machado
Additionally signed by Peter Hujar

Off-set poster (Photograph by Peter Hujar)

Contact gallery for price.

Ethyl Eichelberger was a key player on the manic East Village scene of the 1980s. Best remembered today for his high octane solo drag performances, for nearly twenty years Ethyl wrote, produced, staged, and starred in a series of thirty-two madcap and highly idiosyncratic plays based upon the lives of great women of history, literature, and myth. The plays, including “Nefertiti,” “Medea,” “Lucrezia Borgia,” and “Klytemnestra” concern strong women who were survivors, mix high and low elements, include accordion-accompanied songs, fire-eating, and rigorous acrobatics. They were performed to critical acclaim by Eichelberger with razor sharp acting skills in clubs and performance spaces such as The Pyramid, 8 B.C., Dixon Place, s.n.a.f.u., and PS 122. In addition to keeping his own repertoire in constant production, he also performed with Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company, both as actor and wig designer.

Peter Hujar produced some of the most intimate photographs of his generation. Known to use as his subjects avant-garde artists of the city’s underground, he captured the vulnerability of his subjects in their brokenness and nakedness. Notoriously difficult to work with, Hujar only had one solo exhibition during his lifetime, held at Gracie Mansion Gallery, before succumbing to AIDS at the age of 53. Period ephemera that utilizes images of Hujar’s subjects remain extremely scarce.

The examples included in this exhibition illustrate the extraordinary collaboration between the two renegade artists. Eichelberger served as one of Hujar’s favored muses, photographed throughout his career in various characters from his extensive oeuvre. As with much of Hujar’s work, the photographs reveal the interconnectedness of downtown artists lost during the AIDS epidemic.

G.E.

Pyramid Club (Ethyl Eichelberger as Nefertiti)

Posted on

September 1983

Off-set poster (Photograph by Peter Hujar)

14 x 8.5 inches

Sold.

Ethyl Eichelberger was a key player on the manic East Village scene of the 1980s. Best remembered today for his high octane solo drag performances, for nearly twenty years Ethyl wrote, produced, staged, and starred in a series of thirty-two madcap and highly idiosyncratic plays based upon the lives of great women of history, literature, and myth. The plays, including “Nefertiti,” “Medea,” “Lucrezia Borgia,” and “Klytemnestra” concern strong women who were survivors, mix high and low elements, include accordion-accompanied songs, fire-eating, and rigorous acrobatics. They were performed to critical acclaim by Eichelberger with razor sharp acting skills in clubs and performance spaces such as The Pyramid, 8 B.C., Dixon Place, s.n.a.f.u., and PS 122. In addition to keeping his own repertoire in constant production, he also performed with Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company, both as actor and wig designer.

Peter Hujar produced some of the most intimate photographs of his generation. Known to use as his subjects avant-garde artists of the city’s underground, he captured the vulnerability of his subjects in their brokenness and nakedness. Notoriously difficult to work with, Hujar only had one solo exhibition during his lifetime, held at Gracie Mansion Gallery, before succumbing to AIDS at the age of 53. Period ephemera that utilizes images of Hujar’s subjects remain extremely scarce.

The examples included in this exhibition illustrate the extraordinary collaboration between the two renegade artists. Eichelberger served as one of Hujar’s favored muses, photographed throughout his career in various characters from his extensive oeuvre. As with much of Hujar’s work, the photographs reveal the interconnectedness of downtown artists lost during the AIDS epidemic.

G.E.

s.n.a.f.u. (Ethyl Eichelberger as Minnie the Maid)

Posted on

May/June 1987

Xerox copy (Photograph by Peter Hujar)

11 x 8.5 inches

Contact gallery for price.

Ethyl Eichelberger was a key player on the manic East Village scene of the 1980s. Best remembered today for his high octane solo drag performances, for nearly twenty years Ethyl wrote, produced, staged, and starred in a series of thirty-two madcap and highly idiosyncratic plays based upon the lives of great women of history, literature, and myth. The plays, including “Nefertiti,” “Medea,” “Lucrezia Borgia,” and “Klytemnestra” concern strong women who were survivors, mix high and low elements, include accordion-accompanied songs, fire-eating, and rigorous acrobatics. They were performed to critical acclaim by Eichelberger with razor sharp acting skills in clubs and performance spaces such as The Pyramid, 8 B.C., Dixon Place, s.n.a.f.u., and PS 122. In addition to keeping his own repertoire in constant production, he also performed with Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company, both as actor and wig designer.

Peter Hujar produced some of the most intimate photographs of his generation. Known to use as his subjects avant-garde artists of the city’s underground, he captured the vulnerability of his subjects in their brokenness and nakedness. Notoriously difficult to work with, Hujar only had one solo exhibition during his lifetime, held at Gracie Mansion Gallery, before succumbing to AIDS at the age of 53. Period ephemera that utilizes images of Hujar’s subjects remain extremely scarce.

The examples included in this exhibition illustrate the extraordinary collaboration between the two renegade artists. Eichelberger served as one of Hujar’s favored muses, photographed throughout his career in various characters from his extensive oeuvre. As with much of Hujar’s work, the photographs reveal the interconnectedness of downtown artists lost during the AIDS epidemic.

G.E.

Artistic Manifesto

Posted on

c. 1980s

Xerox print

17 x 11 inches

Sold.

Jack Smith was a pioneer of underground cinema and widely considered the founding father of American performance art and drag culture. He helped to create the “trash cinema” aesthetic, literally working sans a budget, as well as being one of the earliest directors to incorporate the DIY ethos into his filmmaking. Smith’s transgressive films, including “Flaming Creatures,” were liberated expressions of a growing sexual awareness in American culture, bringing him into conflict with government censors who labeled them as pornographic and ultimately brought about a criminal trial. His work greatly influenced experimental filmmakers such as Andy Warhol, Ron Rice, and the enigmatic Kuchar brothers, among others, and inspired a multitude of future artists. In keeping with his manic creative output, Smith was also a collaborator in John Vaccaro’s Playhouse of the Ridiculous, creating sets and costumes for the elaborate productions.

G.E.

Business Card

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c. 1980s

Glossy card stock

3.5 x 4.75 inches

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Jack Smith was a pioneer of underground cinema and widely considered the founding father of American performance art and drag culture. He helped to create the “trash cinema” aesthetic, literally working sans a budget, as well as being one of the earliest directors to incorporate the DIY ethos into his filmmaking. Smith’s transgressive films, including “Flaming Creatures,” were liberated expressions of a growing sexual awareness in American culture, bringing him into conflict with government censors who labeled them as pornographic and ultimately brought about a criminal trial. His work greatly influenced experimental filmmakers such as Andy Warhol, Ron Rice, and the enigmatic Kuchar brothers, among others, and inspired a multitude of future artists. In keeping with his manic creative output, Smith was also a collaborator in John Vaccaro’s Playhouse of the Ridiculous, creating sets and costumes for the elaborate productions.

G.E.

Slide Show

Posted on

c. 1980s

Xerox print

8.5 x 11 inches

Contact gallery for ptice.

Jack Smith was a pioneer of underground cinema and widely considered the founding father of American performance art and drag culture. He helped to create the “trash cinema” aesthetic, literally working sans a budget, as well as being one of the earliest directors to incorporate the DIY ethos into his filmmaking. Smith’s transgressive films, including “Flaming Creatures,” were liberated expressions of a growing sexual awareness in American culture, bringing him into conflict with government censors who labeled them as pornographic and ultimately brought about a criminal trial. His work greatly influenced experimental filmmakers such as Andy Warhol, Ron Rice, and the enigmatic Kuchar brothers, among others, and inspired a multitude of future artists. In keeping with his manic creative output, Smith was also a collaborator in John Vaccaro’s Playhouse of the Ridiculous, creating sets and costumes for the elaborate productions.

G.E.

Untitled (with Jose Rafael Arango and Charles Ludlam)

Posted on

c. 1969

“Credit photo to Jack Smith” written in Jose Rafael Arango’s hand, verso

Vintage gelatin silver print

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Jose Rafael Arango was an actor with Charles Ludam’s Ridiculous Theater Company, a Warhol associate, and a familiar figure of the village underground. Arango was the muse of many downtown artists, and appeared in numerous Peter Hujar photographs. The performance for this photograph is undocumented—however, it likely depicts Arango rehearsing with the cast of “Turds in Hell.” Arango was later replaced by Candy Darling before the play debuted due to a conflict with his job as an airline “stewardess.” This Jack Smith photograph comes from Arango’s estate.

G.E.

Evocation 1

Posted on

1984

Signed, verso

Watercolor on paper

11 x 14 inches

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Bill Rice was considered by such luminaries as Rene Ricard to be one of the most important painters of urban life from his generation. Rice’s depictions of inner city gay men are some of the most hauntingly beautiful images of anonymous sexual encounters during the epidemic. For gay men of his generation, the very act of sex was a political statement.

G.E.

Evocation 2

Posted on

1984

Signed, verso

Watercolor on paper

14 x 11 inches

Sold.

Bill Rice was considered by such luminaries as Rene Ricard to be one of the most important painters of urban life from his generation. Rice’s depictions of inner city gay men are some of the most hauntingly beautiful images of anonymous sexual encounters during the epidemic. For gay men of his generation, the very act of sex was a political statement.

G.E.