Posts from the “1970s” Category

Jane Dickson: The Last Days of Babylon

Posted on July 12, 2013

Throughout 70s and 80s the Times Square was a haven for XXX theaters, go-go girls, pimps, whore houses, rent boys, hustlers, thieves, dealers, and lowlifes on the make. Police and city authorities had declared the area as DMZ for crime and sex. The 1977 debut of Show World across 42nd Street from the Port Authority Bus Terminal was the high-water mark for Times Square’s Era of Errors. It had class.

Successive mayors attempted to purify Times Square without success, for the Mafia-owned establishments were protected by the First Amendment. Finally in 1995 Rudy Giuliani enacted adult zoning laws to end the magnificent wickedness and the following year every XXX theaters and porno shops closed on a rainy afternoon with the moving crews loading salacious merchandise into trucks, as the tearful affectionados of sleaze chanted on the sidewalk, “Fuck Rudy G.”

All along the Minnesota Strip pimps in fur coats hijacked teenage runaways straight off a bus from the Midwest and slick hustlers struck cowboy poses on the street corners, while dope-hungry muggers trailed unsuspecting hicks down dark streets. The action should have tapered off Christmas Eve, except the players on the Strip were dedicated to acting naughty and not the least bit nice. Tonight was no exception.

The glowing marquees and flashing neon billboards camouflaged the lurking danger of Times Square. On the sidewalk two young boys were rummaged through a fallen man’s pockets. No one interfered with the robbery and few people made eye contact, unless they loved trouble.

A brutish bouncer stopped a young blonde girl before the go-go lounge, then she produced an ID and danced a seductive Watusi as an audition. The doorman waved the teenager inside the Dollhouse, as Times Square swallowed another runaway faster than a starving shark.

The Dollhouse’s DJ segued from RING MY BELL to BROWN SUGAR and on stage the naked redhead cupped her breasts before a middle-aged man. The plaid-suited businessman was bald and overweight, but the $20 in his hand transformed him to Robert Redford, as he slipped the crisp bill beneath teenager’s G-string.

Times Square’s best pinball wizards gathered around the ‘KISS’, as the champ bumped the machine with his groin and they nodded each time the scoreboard tocked another free game. The champ was on a roll, then the arcade’s front door opened for a frigid draft and a deathly thin player commented, “Damn, one of them Minnesota girls has come in from the cold.”

The go-go girl hooked her arm inside the punk’s elbow. He wasn’t her type, but a woman on her own was a walking target on the Strip and even after 2am Times Square wasn’t ready to call it a night.

Men crowded into a theater featuring the hit XXX film BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR and a pimp strutted across Broadway with two teens in skimpy silks. After midnight on 42nd Street everyone was working overtime.

Artwork by Jane Dickson
Text by Peter Nolan Smith,
from THE LAST DAYS OF BABYLON

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Manhattan, Painting, Poetry

Joe Maloney: New Jersey, c. 1979

Posted on July 2, 2013

Joe Maloney, “Blue Fence, Asbury Park, New Jersey,” 1980

Joe Maloney, Seaside Heights, New Jersey, 1980

Joe Maloney is that guy, the one who works on two levels at the same time. He takes what we know, what we see, our cultural vernacular, and translates it through the lens of the camera so that he speaks in all languages without ever saying a word. It is seen, it is felt, it is… understood.

And yet, there is more, always more.

“Maloney was a member of the stable of legendary photographers at LIGHT, the preeminent New York gallery of contemporary photography which included many notable photographers whose work in color helped revolutionize the acceptance of the medium. Maloney, along with Stephen Shore, Mitch Epstein, Carl Toth and others helped set the stage for today’s generation of photographers whose use of color is automatic and not necessarily a conscious choice.”

So begins the text for Maloney’s exhibition of previously-unseen work now showing at Rick Wester Fine Art, New York, through August 16.

The text continues, “At a time when polychromatic images were radical and their validity fought over, Maloney found the subject matter closest to him, suburbia, the receding rural landscape and the cultural oddities that America had created of them bathed in sunlight of enormous emotional range and conflict. Late, electric, raking sun cut swathes of scenery into patterns sewn together by streets and parks populated by pleasure seekers, poseurs, and other characters caught up in what Bruce Springsteen sang as ‘this runaway American Dream” Maloney’s exploration of the Jersey Shore and in particular Asbury Park is fueled by the urge to discover something immediate, concrete and candid within the artifice of the resort town culture.”

Through Maloney’s lens, we see a world we know, a world in which we once lived, as children and adults on summer break. His photographs are at once nostalgic, and something more; they embrace the enthnography of the Jersey Shore without trying too hard. There is no tongue planted in cheek, there is no pedestal to be placed upon or knocked down a peg. There is no self-consciousness, no self-referential narcissism. There is simply a time and a place and the people who lived it, just as they live it today.

For more information please check out
Joe Maloney :: Asbury Park & the Jersey Shore, c. 1979

Joe Maloney, Two Girls, Seaside Heights, New Jersey, 1980

Categories: 1970s, Art, Fashion, Photography

Just Chaos! Curated by Roberta Bayley

Posted on May 16, 2013

Marcia Resnick, Johnny Thunders, 1972

Books and photographs. Photographs and books. The historical record reflects the times as they were lived by those who were there. And here we are, some four decades later, reflecting on punk as it first came up on the streets of New York, along the Bowery, at CBGBs, a mélange of artists, performers, and personalities making for great photography, for stories that are shared and collected, for memories rediscovered and truths being told. For those who were there, and those who missed it, Just Chaos! takes us back to a time and a place where you damn sure better do it yourself, cause if you don’t ain’t no one else.

In the windows and intimate niches of BookMarc, New York, now through May 23, Roberta Bayley has installed selections from 13 photographers of the era:, many which have not been seen before this exhibition. Featuring the work of Bayley, Janette Beckman, Stephanie Chernikowski, Lee Black Childers, Danny Fields, Godlis, Julia Gorton, Bobby Grossman, Bob Gruen, Laura Levine, Eileen Polk, Marcia Resnick, Chris Stein, and Joe Stevens, the photographs featured here are curated with an eye towards style, inspired by the energy of the era as it manifested in the world at that time. “It’s all based in poverty,” Bayley reflects. Everything was D.I.Y., do it yourself.

Fashion, music, style, photography—all of it came as an expression of the truth: after the hippie movement sparked, it became mainstream and lost its edge. Punk came out of that void, all claws and fangs and guitar strings, spikes and torn clothes. It was street, strung out and sexy. It was the artist as anti-hero, a Romantic poem at the end of the second millennium AD. It was about the absolutes of individualism, of speaking your own voice and saying F the system.

But the only constant in life is change, and in one’s own lifetime there are seismic shifts. And now it is that we look to books and photographs to remind us of how it used to be so that we may reflect and consider how the only constant is change. Godlis reflects, “Everyone went down to CBGBs. Everyone would come up with new ideas and you could connect with them. We put flyers on lampposts. That was the Internet of the day. You did not wait for something to be done by someone else.”

Making something out of nothing is what New York has been about, being an original, being authentic, having something no one else could touch. The depths to which Richard Hell, Chrissie Hynde, Debbie Harry, the Ramones, the Heartbreakers, the Dead Boys, and so many others brought to their music was matched by the eye of the photographers whose energy enhanced their own. A dialogue was born, a conversation of photographs, emblems, images, icons. It was a new way of looking at the world, a freedom that came from commitment to one’s artistry.

Marcia Resnick explains, “Punks express themselves with youthful aplomb, audacity and honesty. They realize their creative drives without reservation, whether they are making music or outfitting themselves in unique attire. They do things to the best of their abilities without consideration for polish or acceptance.” Consider her photograph of Johnny Thunders: “He covered his face with a kerchief, like the Lone Ranger. He wore a syringe, like a feather, in his hat. He is the incarnation of audacity.”

And it was this audacity that first sailed across the seas, back to the UK, influencing their culture in notorious ways. As Janette Beckman notes, “Punk brought an anti-establishment raw freshness to music, art and style and politics. It was about change, the idea that people should question authority and ‘do it for themselves’. At that time the economy in the UK was terrible, the three day work week, no jobs, no future, British class system, led people to rebel against the way things were and had always been. Punk was an attitude and a life style, that changed everything in the UK.”

Punk has power because it is rooted in the commitment of the individual. Taking on its ethos requires one to maintain a level of personal integrity uncompromised by expectation of objection. As Bobby Grossman recalls, “My photos were synonymous with PUNK.I abandoned a career in painting and Illustration (BFA Rhode Island School of Design) and after a few visits to CBGB to see the first Talking Head shows. I picked up a camera and began to document my visits every night. I had basic photography skills and I found that a Konica point and shoot camera was the simplest and easiest way to go. I often shot from the hip so some of my images included the graffiti on the ceiling while missing most of the composition or maybe just getting a portion of it. I was very in the moment. Many or most No Wave and PUNK musicians were novices to their instruments and I guess you could say the same about me and my camera.”

Punk is the great equalizer. Take it and make it yours. You don’t need money. You don’t need hype. Do It Yourself. Take photographs. Make books. Hang shows. Photography offers a path into the past that makes it come alive in every glance. The cumulative effect of Just Chaos! is breathtaking. It is the awareness that this is it, this is the tipping point in history. We are back on Bleecker Street. The time is not the same, but the time is always now to be making moves.

Janette Beckman, Punks, Worlds End, London 1978

Categories: 1970s, Art, Fashion, Manhattan, Music, Photography

Jamel Shabazz: Brooklyn Represent

Posted on January 8, 2013

Women of God, NYC © Jamel Shabazz

The Brooklyn Central Library stands proudly at Grand Army Plaza, firmly set in the Northwest corner of Prospect Park, shining bright with gold inlays upon its façade, recalling nothing so much as Egyptian hieroglyphics. Inside the library, the ceiling soars high above, opening its many collections to a public that loves books for pleasure, for knowledge, for enlightenment—much like Jamel Shabazz himself.

Shabazz, a native of Brooklyn, currently has a four-part exhibition on display at the Central Library now through February 28, 2013, which has been produced in conjunction with a self-published thirty-year retrospective of his photographs titled Represent: Photographs from 1980–2012. The exhibition is organized in four parts, each display in a different location on the first two floors. In the atrium of the ground floor stands an edit from Represent, a broad swath of color, spirit, and style as Shabazz see the people of the world.

He explains, “ Since picking up my first camera nearly thirty-five years ago, I was intrigued with how people within my community represented themselves. As time passed, I embarked on a self-imposed assignment to document the people of the world around me. I have been very fortunate to meet many wonderful and diverse people from around the globe, and each experience has enriched me in ways that far surpassed what I learned in history books.” His photographs bring that home, as we see people from all walks of life in their native dress, be it Dominican adolescents in their pageant best or two little Jamaican girls, with their afro puffs glorious in yellow, black, and green, or the Italian men, lined up in the window of a café in Little Italy, staring down the camera like they’re on the set of a Scorcese film. And we’re just getting started.

One of Shabazz’s many gifts is taste, his honing in on people killing it with their pride of purpose and the dignity that belies human greatness. It is seen in the dress, the posture, and the determination of spirit that he captures that make each person he pictures a king and queen. This is most evident in the installation along the balcony of the second floor, grandly overlooking the atrium and out the front doors. Here Shabazz gives us “Men of Honor and Women of Distinction,” a sweeping tribute to the heroes of modern life. In perhaps the most lovely social networking moment I’ve had in some time, Shabazz posted a brilliant portrait of eleven black women perfectly dressed in a bouquet of pastel suits and slinky heels, perfect coiffures and more than a couple of hats. To which, Spike Lee asked, “Who are they?” and Shabazz answered “Women of God.”

This is but one in a series that pays tribute to the traditions of family, community, nation, and global village, the very now that allows the earth to carry six billion people. Shabazz gives us a glimpse into but a few lives he has connected with over the years, as they organize themselves in groups or around distinguished individuals. He speaks of being influenced by dapper men of Caribbean descent, standing erect and proud. It is this bearing and carriage that Shabazz sees when he looks at law enforcement, military personnel, elders, social and political activists, and every day people organized for the greater good of our world. Whether wearing a uniform of Sunday best, in these photographs Shabazz bears witness to the men and women who uphold the principles of family, community, and civil service.

Nestled into the entrance of the Brooklyn Collection, just off the balcony, is “Reflections,” a series of over eighty photographs depicting the people of Brooklyn. There’s a lot of talk about Brooklyn, there always was. Maybe it’s something in the water, or it’s in the air. Shabazz’s photographs remind us of this, like nothing else; that despite all of the diversity of ethnicity, culture, and custom, there is something that unites these beautiful people together and that is the ground upon which they walk. I’m saying, it comes up through the ground. And in these photographs we feel it, Shabazz being a native and understanding that here we walk upon sacred ground.

Lastly, and perhaps most touchingly, is the installation up front, “Pieces of a Man” in the Foyer Cases, which you can catch when you are coming or going—both are good. Here Shabazz shows us an intimate glimpse into the art that inspires him, as a man and an artist and a native of this here Brooklyn. It begins with Leonard Freed, Black in White America, and it forces us to ask the question, what’s really changed, and what’s really good. Tough questions. We usually talk around them. But not Shabazz. He presses forth, he brings in the music of an era. 45s, 8 Tracks, we’re talking Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan. The list goes on. There are magazines, books, images, texts, stories, each one adding to the next, until the experience of these cases becomes a diary written by the voices of the world we know, but never fully see, until into it Shabazz brings his voice, like a bell tolling with perfect clarity.

Old School, ND, Harlem NY © Jamel Shabazz

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Brooklyn, Exhibitions, Music, Photography

Cindy Sherman: The Early Works

Posted on December 14, 2012

Cindy Sherman: The Early Works 1975-1977

Chaka Khan most famously sang, “I’m every woman” and no artist embodies this quite as brilliantly as Cindy Sherman. She has been remaking herself in the image of others throughout her career, giving a spellbinding performance of gender roles assigned to (mostly) Caucasian women as they are created and lived by countless females. Her ability to transform reveal the plasticity of identity as it is defined by appearance and affect, by the way in which we unconsciously communicate our fears and dreams through non-verbal cues.

The photograph is the ideal medium for Sherman’s experiments and discoveries, the still image being a soundless, wordless, motionless space for eternal contemplation. Sherman’s uncanny ability to play a role, to construct an entire narrative into a single frame is nothing short of remarkable. What is perhaps shocking is that she has been doing this for close to forty years, and her earliest work is just as profound and compelling as that of her later years.

These works are collected together for the first time in Cindy Sherman: The Early Works 1975–1977 Catalogue Raisonné(Hatje Cantz). This volume is simply magnificent, a breathtaking tour-de-force that unfolds with image after image of the artist who would come to embody an iconography all her own, a kind of storytelling that has no precedent on this scale in the medium.

What makes The Early Works compelling is the simplicity of the work and the way in which this is mirrored in the production of the book. It is understood this book will be grand from the very opening of the front cover, as a bright orange matte jacket flap rest against silver endpapers. That and the book is 376 pages. It is substantial, and statuesque as gatefold after gatefold reveal themselves. The works inside are pure pleasure, presented against a vast expanse of white space. They sit there, one after another, variations on a theme, repetitions to derive an effect, a kind of very clever inside joke with yourself. Sherman’s ease into the odd characters she creates are clearly a kind of genius that is perfectly suited to the medium of photography. The pleasure of this book is seeing her brilliance in its earliest stage, and the way in which she was always born to stand before a camera in order to create the image in her mind.

As Sherman notes in the beginning of Gabriele Schor’s essay, “Even though I’ve never actively thought of my work as feminist or as a political statement, certainly everything was drawn from my observations as a woman in this culture. And a part of that is a love/hate thing—being infatuated with makeup and glamour and detesting it at the same time. It comes from trying to look like a proper young lady or look as sexy or as beautiful as you can make yourself, and also feeling like a prisoner of that structure.”

Indeed, that structure forms the basis of her iconography, and the sense of imprisonment is palpable in some of her more emotionally tense scenes, Her explorations extend far beyond the frame of femininity, giving us a sense of a certain femaleness that every woman is confronted with as she reaches maturity. The Early Works offers a larger context in which to place this new frame, particularly with the facsimile of Script Notes for “A Play of Selves” written in 1976.

Here Sherman puts into words what she has been saying with imagery, a cast of characters that include A Broken Woman, The Vanity, The Madness, The Agony, The Desire, The Actual Main Character, and The Character As Others See Her, among others. We are then given four acts and a finale, each outlined with scenes, and with these pages we are given a concrete look at the structure of Sherman’s mind during the process of creation as she maps idea into actuality. Following the acts, we are given two pages that tell us about the order of characters photographed, which are then illustrated in the actual works themselves.

For this project, Sherman cut out full-body portraits so that they appear as paper dolls, each posed in specific stances to communicate meaning through gesture, emotion, and juxtaposition with one another. The facsimile pages let us know exactly what we are looking at, creating a sense of silent film as the pages unfold. And it is just this silence that makes the photograph so profound, the way in which we are invited to fill in the blanks by creating meaning through the implications of Sherman’s work.

The Early Works is a deeply fulfilling experience, not only because of its dedication to detailing this period of the artist’s work, but also because of Sherman herself. Her clarity of vision and the proliferation of her ideas present Sherman as something of an Athena, springing fully armed from the mind of Zeus himself. There is something of the warrior in Sherman’s work throughout her career, a tireless champion whose commitment to the medium has forever transformed our ideas about photography, the female gaze, and the construction of identity itself.

Cindy Sherman: The Early Works 1975-1977

Categories: 1970s, Art, Books, Photography, Women

Bobby Seale: All Power to the People

Posted on December 7, 2012

Everyone has a level by which they’re going to deal for self. But in dealing for self you can or cannot be considerate of your fellow human being next to you or near you or around you or in your neighborhood. It was the 60s protest movement that captured the imagination of a lot of young people, including myself. For me to go and hear Martin Luther King speak in 1962 when I was first introduced to, beginning to understand, what that 60s protest movement was about, I was a young college man, I was an engineering/design major, and at night I worked a full time job in an engineering department. I was working on the Gemini Missile project, a government-financed framework putting the satellites up around the earth. I placed myself in the high tech world I loved. So that’s where I was; but I became sensitive, was made sensitive by people like Martin Luther King, by the plight of Nelson Mandela in South Africa. They made me understand, made me take the time to research and know the history—not only the colonization of Africa but the history of African Americans in this country. And I had already identified with the history of peoples—when I was 16, before I knew any African American history, I knew Native American history and their plight. It was easy, I guess, that the civil rights protest movement should get to me and cause me to be concerned a young man—not married, to get involved in the protest movement, to the point of literally quitting my engineering job to go to work in the grassroots community and not even make the kind of money I was making.

Now the Constitution of the United States of America and the First Amendment that Huey Newton had pointed out before we started the Black Panther Party gave the people the right to peacefully assemble and peacefully address their grievances. That’s important to understand—morally, correctly so—but more importantly from a legal standpoint. The people had a right to peacefully redress their grievances and peacefully protest. Before the Black Panther Party came along, peaceful protesters were getting murdered shot, killed, brutalized. Peaceful protesters who declared that they were holding peaceful protests. It happened to a lot of protest efforts around the country because they gained momentum, because they were saying, “Let’s make a change.” Violence was getting heaped upon peaceful protesters.

It’s important to understand what we said in our Ten Point Program, when we called for full employment, decent housing, an end to exploitation and robbery of our communities, free preventative medial care for our communities—these were basic civil rights issues that peaceful protesters were about across the board. But politicians would order their police, order their National Guard, order their state police to literally beat the heads of and brutalize the peaceful protesters. So by the time we came along, Huey and I, creating the Black Panther Party, we took the position that if anyone attacks the people of the United States, if any racist or others attack the people of the United States, it’s wrong. Because we would take arrest, that was always our policy: if the police say we’re under arrest, we take the arrest. We were never afraid of the courtroom, but if they come in shooting and not recognizing our human right to live, as a means to try to terrorize us, we will defend ourselves—and that’s what we did. By 1969 every Black Panther Party office across the United States of America was attacked and half of those attacks resulted in shootouts—because the police came in shooting. They didn’t come in saying you were under arrest, they just came in shooting and we defended ourselves. And in that heavy period of 1969, twenty-eight of my Black Panther Party members ended up dead, a couple of them killed by provocateur agents working for the FBI inside our organization. And then they attempted to blame party members for doing it. Now this is why I was heating up, but we defended ourselves. And we had many a rally that was basically peaceful; we had many a gathering that was basically peaceful; we had many a free breakfast for children in churches or in other halls that were basically peaceful efforts. The point is they heaped the violence upon the United States and we defended ourselves from it.

Now people forget how and why all those attacks and all those shootouts—shootouts with the police were largely the police attacking the United States—now why did those police and those attacks stop? People have to remember that by 1970, going into 1971, the United States Senate, Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator Church headed up an investigation hearing on the FBI because they found out the FBI was going to police departments and setting up and laying plans months in advance to attack the Black Panther Party offices. Now with this hearing the FBI was in the hot seat and the United States Senate asked—it was right on live television—“Why are you running around here attacking these Black Panther Party members?” Now if you take note of history, those investigations were caused by the last two attacks in December 1969. December 4 in Chicago, a predawn raid where the police busted into a house and came in shooting, shot up everybody, and killed and murdered Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. We later proved and showed, and as the Freedom of Information Act documents, that in fact the FBI had an infiltrator who got the plans for the layout of the house. Those plans were given to the State Attorney’s Special Police Force. Six to eight years later, a suit was filed and the families of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark eventually won millions from the FBI and the State Attorney.

Two days after that shootout they attacked the Los Angeles office, and a month or two after that they laid out plans to attack the national headquarters, the central headquarters of the Black Panther Party here in Berkeley California. I was in jail at the time, but a young white policeman in the Berkeley Police Department had overheard the plans. This young white police officer, hearing them laugh and carry on about how “We’ll kill 10 or 20 of these Black Panther Party when we come in shooting from the downstairs up to the second story through the ceilings,” all this kind of crap—this young white policeman stole the plans and gave them to our lawyer and we called a press conference and put them in the press.

I am trying to show you that there’s smoking gun evidence of how the politicians and others had agreed that they needed to wipe out and terrorize the Black Panther Party. Further, the mayor of Seattle, Washington, a young white liberal mayor, got on television after he discovered the FBI had planned attacks on the Seattle chapters. He said, “We want the FBI out of our department. We will not have the FBI try to spearhead and cause an attack on the Black Panther Party here in Seattle.” Now notice something: after the investigations there were never any more shootouts between the Black Panther Party members and the police in the United States again—ever. That’s the evidence.

This is what people forget or don’t know or don’t understand about our position. The difference is between taking the right of self-defense and at the same time having all kinds of programs around the country. Party members went to do breakfast programs without guns. It’s what we did when we started that Free Breakfast for Children program—it’s one thing to say the racist pig power structure is brutal, it’s murderous; it’s another thing to articulate and specify all the hysterical particulars of how racist discrimination has affected the United States; but it’s another thing to say we’re not only observing the police, we’re going to organize political, electoral campaigns and we’re going to run for political office and we’re going to try to win some of these localized seats where we have these large African American groups.

We were ready to write legislation that deleted the racist discrimination, policies, and institutionalized racism. Because the city council is nothing but a local legislative body—just as a county seat is a local legislative body, as states are local legislative bodies, as the federal government is a local legislative body—it can make laws and policies that make human sense. This is what our revolution was about. Not only had the Black Panther Party spread out in 49 chapters with branches in cities across the United States of America but we had working coalitions with all ethnic groups, including our white, left radical friends, so we had another ten thousand working in our framework called the United Front Against Fascism: The National Committee to Combat Fascism. So to the power structure we were on the proper move to make a change.

What people have to take time to understand was that we, as young college students, injected something into the movement that was relevant, and that legacy is about uniting people and creating greater political electoral empowerment. You have to remember we ran for political office with our names on the ballot: a critique of and opposition to institutionalized racism in the United States. Trying to unite people with electoral and community empowerment and to change legislative bodies as a means to fight against institutionalized racism here in the United States of America: that is what we were about, that is what I stood for, that is what I organized.

—Bobby Seale
As told to Miss Rosen
Oakland 2006

America Was Built on Revolution

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, Art, Photography

Martha Cooper: Tattoo Tokyo 1970

Posted on May 18, 2012

In 1970, photographer Martha Cooper spotted a man in a crowd. On his back was a Japanese tattoo, figures drawn in the style of a woodblock print. Entranced by this vision, Cooper followed him until he disappeared, and soon thereafter began questioning her friends about the subject. It was a touchy topic—it had been outlawed in 1872 and legalized again in 1948 and as the decades intervened, tattoos became symbols of the yakuza, the gangsters and the underworld of Japan. This is because the images of tattoos were seen in films, and is all too common, what is constructed for entertainment is taken as truth.

Fortunately, Cooper delved deeper, and discovered an ancient art, the art of the ornamental flesh that has traditionally defined members of the working class. As Cooper explains, “Tattooing properly is a difficult skill and therefore to get tattooed has always been expensive. A bad tattoo artist could kill you by pricking your skin to deeply with poisonous inks. A laborer who as a full upper body tattoo has to earn a lot of money to pay for it. Thus the most beautiful and extensive tattoos are symbols of wealth and prestige.” And it was with this basis for understanding that Cooper visited tattoo master Horibun I in Tokyo and documented his world.

Tattoo Tokyo 1970 (Dokument Press) is a beautifully produced volume of this work. Tall, slim, and elegant, the book is as much an objet d’art as the work itself. This volume features two brief essays by Cooper describing her study, the writing as rare as the images themselves for Cooper usually allows her photographs to speak for her. Cooper’s essays add insight and context to the work, providing us with a stage and a setting for the scenes about to unfold.

As Cooper describes, “In the corner of the room say a young girl of about 18, who I assumed was Mr. Horibun’s daughter or assistant. She greeted me and we chatted, avoiding the subject of tattooing. Mrs. Horibun brought us tea and as we were sipping it, began making preparations. She moved aside the little table, rolled out a narrow mat and adjusted the overhead light. Mr. Horibun then walked into the room without ceremony and began to prepare the inks. To my surprise, I saw that the inks were nothing more than the usual ones used for calligraphy. As Mr. Horibun rubbed the ink stick in water on a stone, the young girl who had been sitting demurely beside me began to unbutton her blouse. I realized for the first time that she was the one to be tattooed but did my best to hide my amazement.”

And it is this young girl who receives a striking piece outlined upon her back, a girl kneeling while contemplating a branch in her hands. Cooper carefully documents the work of Horibun I, and we see how the master uses flesh as canvas for a drawing that has as many layers of work as it does symbolic importance. In Cooper’s photographs we also see the human as canvas themselves, and can consider the dialectic between ideas which are usually quite distinct. Through the process of creation artist and the artwork are forever fused with the owner themselves—for the act of wearing a tattoo is as much about adornment as it is about expressing the inner self.

This particular form of art is unlike any other, for it is permanent in the most temporal state, and just as the body does, it ages and changes over time. Tattoos last as long as life, and after this moment all that remains are the images themselves. The individually decorated body telling a story that is all their own, the style of design as distinctive as the face that wears it proudly. Cooper’s work for Tattoo Tokyo 1970 is a stunning document of a place and a time that brings together history and ritual, tradition and spectacle, expression and artifact in an eloquent volume.

Categories: 1970s, Art, Books, Fashion, Japan, Photography

Afrika Bambaataa

Posted on December 7, 2011

The wonderful Joe Conzo arranged an interview for me with Afrika Bambaataa back in the Fall of 2006, when I was working on That 70s Show. I went in with just two questions: What was the Bronx like back in the day, and what was Hip Hop like before it even had a name. From this came an incomparable story as told to me for issue 2 of powerHouse Magazine, and later featured in Joe Conzo’s book, Born in the Bronx. Dig how Bam is a Buddha and only says the sword “I” twice. Nice. Hip Hop, such as it is meant to be, is the world where You are one with We.

Afrika Bambaataa on New York City in the 1970s:

The Bronx went through different changes. In the 60s, the Bronx had city planning, and organizations made sure you had city planning. You had the blacks and Latinos in the South Bronx, Irish and Italians in the North Bronx, in the Castle Hill area—and they were jumping all the way over to the West Bronx, Broadway, Kingsbridge. In between you had us tokens living in certain areas that would get the racism, trying to “move on up” as they say in The Jeffersons.

You had areas (like the Southeast and South Bronx) with housing development projects, which were like cities in their own right. In these places you had certain street gangs that ruled the areas, or so-called ruled the areas, fighting for what turf was theirs. You had youth gangs that were always mixed with blacks, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and so forth. You had people that were searching for their roots, when so-called black people were Negroes, coloreds, and niggers, and people who spoke Spanish were spics or niggers. Then you had your radicals, your pimps and players, and hookers, and you had people who were construction workers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, taxi cab drivers…

There was politics—those trying to change life in certain parts of the Bronx—the fighters, the warriors for the community. You had people that were against the police—the radicals and revolutionaries that were part of the Black Panther Party, part of the Young Lords Party, some were even part of the crazy radical group that was blowing things up, The Weathermen. You had certain radical street gangs, some were more political and others were just to sell drugs and others just to cause destruction. Then you had a street gang within the police department called the Purple Mothers that was out to destroy the street gangs. It was ex-veterans, out to assassinate them. They would take one group and stick you in an area with a group that hated you, or in a white area and drop you off, and you had to make your way home—almost like the way it was in the movie The Warriors.

That was a time when people were fighting for their civil rights and their human rights. We had great leaders that were waking us up. From Malcolm X, Minister Farrakhan, the most honorable Elijah Muhammad, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, Richie Perez, Pablo Guzman. They showed all of the things that the community was going through, the life and times of the struggle. So when the drug epidemic hit, messing many of our people up, people unified against it. They were together to move the drug dealers out of the community, All this to the movement called hip hop. Hip hop saved a lot of lives, and brought the unification of many different people together under the banner of hip hop culture. There was my group, which became the Zulu Nation, and we went out and started organizing the people. I used to speak to the different leaders, the gang leaders, and the warriors for the community, and asked them to join this thing I was making. Once you get the leaders in, you start getting the followers and the members behind you, and that’s how we started getting larger than the Bronx, stretching into Manhattan and the rest of the city, then to other states and the rest of the world.

You had areas that were nice and areas that were totally messed up; some would say F’ed up. It was so bad in the South Bronx, they said it was the worst place in the United States. And there was the culture of hip hop, this music. We always had the musical aspect in the Bronx. And we had the drugs, the dope, the coke—all that was plaguing the community. In going from Negro, to colored, to black, to African American, we had certain songs that used to grab the community and make everybody happy. That was the time you would see everybody do some salsa, some calypso, or do each others’ ways—people still trying to find their culture. That’s when books like Down these Mean Streets by Piri Thomas or ManChild in the Promised Land came out, with everybody still trying to find their roots. James Brown came out with “Say it Loud, I’m Black and Proud.”

You had the new birth of salsa that started to get strong on the scene, then came Salsoul with brother Joe Bataan, the Joe Cuba Sextet—they were doing rap back then with that. You could see the salsa and soul at the Apollo, all of that on one stage. Joe Bataan with Dionne Warwick, the James Brown Revue and the Motown sound—all that was happening. It was a sight to see. You had the salsa, the Salsoul, a lot of the calypso, reggae or ska music from the West Indies.

People get so caught up not knowing the true mentality of their roots. Like if you say you’re Puerto Rican, you’re still West Indian, you’re still in the Caribbean. That’s why there was interest in books like Down These Mean Streets, where you are trying to find your roots—was he black, was he Puerto Rican, was he white? Everybody was so caught up on what race or nationality you belong to, like, “If I speak Spanish, am I Hispanic?” People were trying to find themselves—and are still trying to find themselves today. But the music always played a good role in our community. With the blacks and Latinos, every three months you had a new dance. Whites were just finding that they could get that soul—and that they got that soul. You had the radio stations, the good ones, WWRL, WWLIB, WNJR, WABC.

In the black and Latino community, you’re born into music. In your mother’s belly, you’re already feeling the vibrations of what they’re feeling. The rhythm of life comes and hits you. So when you’re born and take that breath of air, calling the Creator’s name, you already feel the vibrations of music. By 1 or 2, we have already started shaking something, by 5 we are in full swing. Getting older, in learning to dance you mimic adults, and then we start to do our own thing, make our own steps and dances that then come into our community.

In the early 70s, we started to bring the house turntables. In the house, you would have a whole component set, and you would have to break it all up first. You would bring this big box—or this little box, trying to put the record on. You had the spindle that dropped six 45s at one time, or you could take the spindle off and just play it manually. You had the close and play. You had the big, retarded 8-tracks, sticking out your car. When they turned to cassettes, everybody was happy because they thought this was the new thing. These 8-tracks were always clogging up all your seats, all your stuff. Before that, you had the reel-to-reel, funny radios with two channels. You would think that you were in the 40s and 50s with that type of stuff. Then they started getting more progressive when they started making better radios. FM came in the 70s, because it was all about AM in the 60s. FM was a cleaner, clearer sound. AM was where you would hear more about what was going on in the community. WLIB was the first black-owned radio station. Gary Byrd on WILL used to do the GBE Experience. There was Cousin Brucie on WABC.

We always had rap in our community. You had Joe Cuba, Gil Scott-Heron, Last Poets. Shirley Ellis with “Clap Your Hands,” “The Name Game,” Pigmeat Markham who came up with “Here Comes the Judge.” You also had your rock records that had a rap to them, like “Joy to the World.” Sly and the Family Stone had a rap on their second album. There was rapping that was done on the radio. You can see how far the rapping, call-and-response thing goes back, even before our time. Back to Cab Calloway and all those cats, all the way to Isaac Hayes and Barry White. You had the poet-rappers, Wanda Robinson, Maya Angelou.

It was basically from seeing so many great teachers that came and taught us how to unify, knowing how to speak to our people, going into different communities, saying let’s make something happen. That and giving community parties, as well as what we added in the 80s, what we called the fifth element: knowledge.

You had that strong black core. That was a time when we would respect each other’s momma. Certain people had that status in the community–don’t mess around, you’ll get your butt whipped. It was interesting to see how these things started to change into the disrespect, or how the brainwashing techniques have started to seep in this day and time, where the youth will just cuss or even try to make a move on their elders, when they are trying to teach them something.

It’s 33 years for the Universal Zulu Nation, 32 years for what we’re calling hip hop culture, but it goes even further than that to years when we might of said the Go-Off, or the Beat-Bop when it didn’t have no name. Add the Zulu Nation’s years to the Black Spades’ five or six years of being organized, and it’s really been organized for quite awhile now.

Hip hop keeps it all together, but you know it’s the fifth element that gets people from different nationalities and places to speak about different subjects—mythologies, AIDS, diseases, politics, the universe, subterranean worlds. That’s the interesting part, changing different views, the ideologies, respecting all of the different religions. It’s something where we can, and whether it’s right or wrong, sit and talk to each other—and not kill each other.

You’re dealing with a machine that is controlling the minds of the masses of the people and keeping the people in poverty, teaching them to be greedy, stealing from each other’s land. That is the cause for so much of the chaos on our planet today. People of color get sick and tired and start to rise, and the people in power see this rising and try to hold on to power, doing all types of evilness in the name of their Creator to keep their power. Everybody talks about the war in Iraq. These people love Allah the Supreme Force, where others claim to love Jesus, but do everything except what’s in The Book. Everybody says that this is my holy book, but they don’t really follow it, so who are you following?

People got to go back and research who they are, their roots, and what happened. The biggest thing is the fear factor. They have made it now so you’re fearful to open your mouth, or to protest. When they first started the war, everybody thought if you were against the war, you would lose your job, they would lock you up. Everybody was nervous at first. But then you see the people get tired, the people hitting the streets again, all races and nationalities hitting it. People are still wondering how Bush stole the election.

What is really going on in your government, and what’s really behind your government, and who is controlling your mind, using mind control tactics? We’ve got to reevaluate what is really going on. In Africa, there is no way that anybody should go hungry, starving there, when the Creator blessed Africa with everything in it, every animal and being in it, the farmland, the trees…. Who is paying all that money to make sure that Africa stays starving or messed up when the whole world took their civilization from Africa? And really, for everyone on the planet, their mother really is African, if they go back and check the roots of it all.

The people in power are tricking the people; that they’ve got you under their rule, that you are my Hispanic, you are my black. If you try to go find it, where is black land, white land, yellow land—you can’t find it. It’s really about your status and your nationality and where you come from. Humans are the only ones that have this bugged out thing—that they are colors. Everybody has a place set for us, where we won’t be ourselves. They have wiped out history. When our Spanish brother says, ‘Look at that Mulatto, or the Moor,” you don’t know that you are mulatto, too. It’s going to take a big cleaning of our minds, our mentality, to go back to what it was like when people were trying to wake up, because they have done a great brainwash job on all of us, to make us hate ourselves or be fearful of ourselves. Or we have to move into their community to say that we finally made it, that we’re moving on up, like The Jeffersons.

Born in the Bronx

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Photography

Chris Pape aka FREEDOM: Down by Law

Posted on August 12, 2010

CHRIS PAPE AKA FREEDOM: DOWN BY LAW

Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton
August 14–September 26, 2010

Chris Pape (aka Freedom) is an American painter and graffiti artist. Pape started tagging subway tunnels and subway cars in 1974 as “Gen II” before adopting the tag “Freedom”. He was a witness and a participant to the 20-year run of the New York subway graffiti movement.

He began writing as Gen II in 1974 and finished his career on the trains in 1983 with the tag Freedom.

Pape is best known for his numerous paintings in the eponymous Freedom Tunnel, an Amtrak tunnel running underneath Manhattan’s Riverside Park. Prominent paintings in the Freedom Tunnel attributed to Pape include his “self-portrait” featuring a male torso with a spray-can head and “There’s No Way Like the American Way” (aka “The Coca-Cola Mural”), a parody of Coca-Cola advertising and tribute to the evicted homeless of the tunnel. Another theme of Freedom’s work is black and silver recreations of classical art, including a reinterpretation of the Venus de Milo and a full train car recreation of the iconic hands from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.

Pape will be exhibiting a self portrait from the Freedom Tunnel in “Down by Law” at the Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, opening on August 14, 2010. He has graciously agreed to speak about his work here.

New York in the 1970s and 1980s was a city bursting with originality, innovation, and experimentation. Please talk about how you see the relationship between your early work as an artist and the environment in which it took hold.

The great cities of the 20th century are Paris in the 20s, Berlin in the 30s, and New York in the 70s; and I guarantee you, there will never be another city like New York in the 70s. The gay rights movement, the feminist movement, punk rock, hip hop, graffiti, the blackout, Son of Sam, tabloid journalism, street gangs (in 1977 it became fashionable for gang members to walk through the streets with golf clubs), the blackout, Saturday Night Fever — Saturday Night Live — it all came out of New York!

If there were one particular moment that defined my later work it would have to be in the 1960s. In 1965, at the age of five, my parents wouldn’t let me leave the block alone. I was allowed to go “subway fishing”, this meant laying atop a subway grating and swinging a string with gum affixed to it until it hovered over a lost coin or some other treasure and hoisting them up. These were long summer days that seemed to go on endlessly. I pulled up Indian head pennies, buffalo nickels, matchbooks, a baseball card, and other bits of junk that somehow stayed in the back of my brain until the early 80s.

In 1980 I was already a graffiti writer doing letters on the sides of trains, I quickly found out that I could paint realistic images with spraypaint and looked for a place to do it. There was a freight train tunnel in Riverside Park where trains still ran, the gratings formed 15-foot high canvasses of light against the walls, and in those beams of light I repainted the images of my youth including a baseball card. In 1986 the homeless moved in and became known as the “Mole People”, I stopped painting and documented their lives for three years. I finished my mural work in 1995. I tell the story because I can’t think of any other city in America where something like that could’ve happened. That was New York back in the day.

It has recently been suggested to me that the term “graffiti” is marginalizing, and loaded with negative connotations. How do you feel about the use of the word in general, as well as application to your work as an artist?

The graffiti word is offensive, but it was the only word to describe the early stages of the movement. In 1974 the word “graffiti artist” was coined in the New York Times—that seems like a happy marriage. I don’t lose any sleep over this stuff.

As a working artist over the past three decades, you have seen first hand how the art world—from galleries and dealers to museums and collectors—responds and reacts to contemporary American art. What are your thoughts on the differences (and similarities, if applicable) between the US, European, and Asian markets?

I think the art world as a whole views the works of artists as commodities. Let’s not forget the lessons of the 1980s when graffiti canvases were sold for huge amounts right up until the stock market crash. Things do seem a lot more liberal in Europe where graffiti artists from New York are celebrated and have been for years.

Who are your artistic inspirations, and how have they influenced your ideas, aesthetics, and actions through the course of your career?

Hopper is my favorite painter, I think he tapped into the American psyche more then any other painter of the last century, but I don’t think he inspires me. I’ve bitten generously from Warhol, Oldenburg and Rosenquist, you can see the Rosenquist influence in the “Buy American” painting. Warhol and Oldenburg are there on a more spiritual level.

Self Portrait in The Freedom Tunnel, Artwork © Chris Pape

Self Portrait inspired by The Freedom Tunnel, Artwork © Chris Pape

For “Down by Law” you will be exhibiting your self portrait from the Freedom Tunnel. Please talk about the importance of this piece, and the context in which it was created.

The self portrait for the show was originally painted in the tunnel in 1984. At the time it wasn’t THE FREEDOM TUNNEL, it was just me doing my thing, which allowed me to fail a lot. This painting didn’t really fit in with the themes I had established, but it seemed to work and was published in a number of books. It’s a self portrait. The jacket was given to me by my parents in 1976, I left home in ’77 and lived in the jacket, quite literally. The spraycan head is an old graffiti device that seemed to describe my life at the time.

There has been a wide array of artists to emerge from the early graffiti movement. How have your earlier experiences influenced you ideas about art, and in what direction would you like to go?

When I left the tunnel in 1995 I was a little bit dazed. I was stuck as a painter, although I continued my visual journalism work. I did my new paintings large, and then small, in color, with a sable brush – it seemed as though nothing worked. Of course the answer was that it couldn’t work. The paintings in the tunnel are just that, there in a tunnel. In the same way that if you buy a subway graffiti artist’s work it’s best to buy an entire subway car or it loses context. I think that’s a battle that all graffiti writers that started on trains have had. I’m not saying I’ve fully overcome it but I’ve come close.

www.ericfirestonegallery.com

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Exhibitions, Graffiti, Manhattan, Painting

Anton Perich: True Revolutionary

Posted on July 27, 2010

There’s so much I could say about Anton Perich, but it’s altogether too much for me to try to put it into words. I’ll leave it to the incomparable Mr. Perich to do this better than I ever could.

Your life history is fascinating! Please talk about your work running an underground film program in Paris in the late 1960s.

AP: Thank you. I was making some super 8 movies then. All lost now, except one, “Le retour d’ Eurydice”, in which I was starring. Raphael Bassan directed it. An early French underground film, recently screened at Beaubourg. This was 16mm production, and well preserved.

Anyway, there was this wonderful villa with gardens on Boulevard Raspail, just a few short blocks from La Coupolle. It was housing the old American Center, a complex of art studios and various music and theater activities. Later they tore it down to put the Carier skyscraper. I saw there many international productions and created a few. But one thing was missing, underground films. So I proposed to show films there one night weekly, in a small studio in the basement, and sometimes in the gardens, on the grass. It was a success. I was making films and my friends were making films and there was no place to show them regularly in Paris.

Of course, we were all spoiled by La Cinematheque, spending days there watching classics and contemporary films. But there was no room there for our “little short marginal works”. And of course, revolutions are always made by the marginals.

In the Sixties, the New York Underground cinema were well defined by Warhol, Mekas, Jack Smith, Brackage and others. A whole different scenario was happening in Paris. There was Godard and his gods reigning on the Parnassus, making a wonderful narrative movies, not much questioning Cinema itself. There was also Garell, Clemanti, And there was Etienne O’Leary and Michel Auder. The great Michel Auder, who questioned everything. In 1970 he abandoned film totally and converted to video. I screened his films there the very first night, and often afterwards. He supplied the projector that he somehow inherited from the French Army, I guess he knew de Gaulle, or was his nephew. Another great French underground filmmaker was Raphael Bassan. But the real revolution in Paris film world were maid in the Fifties by the last great god of the avant-garde, Isidore Isou and his prophet Maurice Lemaitre. In the early Fifties they made movies with the found footage, various acids and paints. They made the cinema discrepant, totally separating the sound track from the visual content, as if telling two different stories in the same time. Of course, most of the audience walked out. No one ever did it before. Debord took it all from them. Debord was Lettrist before he became Situationist.

Anyway, I screened some of those films too.

I was associated with Lettristes from 1967 to 1970. I worked with Lemaitre and Isou, painting, writing poetry, shooting films, doing the shows. Lettrism was my school. I was educated by the two greatest artists and thinkers of that time. Of course Isou predicted the 1968 revolution and went mad. We did some performances at L’Odeon, it was occupied, Non-stop 24 hours spectacle. I spent few nights there.

I think that the Revolution of 68, the Paris Spring is grossly misunderstood today. It was not the flesh and blood revolution, no guillotines. It was the revolution of spirit, of the young, so unique in the history of revolutions. It paved the way for other bloodless revolution in the Eastern Europe. Imagine, the Communism died the bloodless death. Tell it to Stalin, or Lenin.

I lived my own revolution there. I became something else at 23. It is difficult to transform oneself, only fantasy and revolution will do it. And spirit. And resurrection. And the fire in Paris streets. And “sous les paves la plage”. The greatest slogan ever written.

To get back to films, I did show some Warhol films, and Mekas.

The legendary Pierro Heliczer came from New York and introduced his films. Taka IImura came there with his films as well, and many other underground filmmakers, French and international.

Why did you decide to come to New York in the 1970s? What was the city like back then, particularly for artists and radicals?

AP: I came to New York in 1970. At that time I was interested in many things that were coming from New York. Underground films. Pop Art. Experimental theater. Warhol’s Factory. Jonas Mekas. Julian Beck. John Cage. John Chamberlain. Minimal Art. Earth Works. All of that new, foreign to the Europeans, miraculous and fascinating. It was all so American. Paris didn’t have any of that. It had a vacuum and suffocating atmosphere. They were mourning the revolution of 68 instead celebrating it.

In NY it was all celebration, non stop celebration of the young, creative and the free. Woodstock was a celebration. Max’s Kansas City was celebration. Punk was celebration, music, fashion and attitude. NY Dolls was celebration. Transvestites were celebration. Taylor Mead was celebration, Warhol, Factory, Candy Darling, Jackie Curtis, Wayne County, Andrea Feldman, John Waters, John Chamberlain, John Cage. Lou Reed. Forest Myers was celebration. His SOHO wall was much better than that other wall in Berlin. And it is there forever in the full glory. Smithson and Heiser were doing God’s work, transforming the landscapes in the great vacuums of America.

In 1973, you produced the first underground TV show which ran on Manhattan public access television. Please talk about your ideas about video art and how you made use of public access TV to explore them.

AP: I quit film and was shooting video. I realized that it was the gun of the future. I realized that the freedom to bear video was the same as the freedom to bear arms. And with a such powerful instrument you dream of changing the world. You dream revolution. You remember I came to NY via Paris and brought a symbolic cobble stone with me, you remember: “under the cobble stones the beach…”Other so called video artists were showing their videos at the galleries and museums, the most safe places in the world. I never had a video show in a gallery or museum. I would be ashamed of it. Such bourgeois establishments. Suffocating the freedoms that video was to bring.

I saw the video camera as the most subversive weapon on the world, and you don’t take it to the gallery, you take it to the American TV. There was Cronkite there and Barbara Walters, but you replace them with Taylor Mead, Danny Fields and Susan Blond. Naked aggressive and radical, hating everything the TV had to offer until that day. I did it on Public Access in January 1973, in the prehistoric times of video. I took my one hour weekly show “Anton Perich Presents” there.

I realized then that the free Public Access was like youtube today. As the matter of fact, like the Internet today. No one realized that it was so powerful, radical and transformative. TV was the last stronghold of American comfort and the superficial perfection. Clean as the soap commercials. But while the soap washed clothes, the TV bleached the brains. The absolute pristine color TV meets the badly produced black and white airings, badly filmed and with bad sound, badly dressed and badly behaved stars of the underground. The Television has never seen this content before. It was the first. Yes, I broke the ice. After me came the flood. Look at the cable today. Yes we made a revolution, single handedly. It was about freedom.

Please talk about the inspiration to start NIGHT Magazine in 1978. Why did you decide to get into publishing, and what was it like to produce print back in the days?

AP: Yes, it was all about inspiration. It was about poetry of the photograph. NIGHT was this wonderful title idea for a new, oversized underground publication. I designed it and published it. Absolutely oversized, glamorous, elegant, sensual on a smooth almost a bed sheet-size beautiful white paper. It was in 1978. I was at the Studio 54 shooting every night fabulous pictures of the most fabulous people in the World. For me photography is an obsession, the white substance.

I was shooting for the Warhol’s Interview magazine and for me that was not enough, so I had to self-publish, as it is called today. Well, it was marvelous to capture all this nightly energy on the pages of NIGHT. Hundreds, thousands of photos. From Victor Hugo to Patty Hansen and Jerry Hall. Bianca, Esme, Carole Bouquet. All dressed on the covers of VOGUE and topless in NIGHT.

I wanted to publish every photo I ever took. It was the Facebook for the Studio 54 regulars. But my photography here is something else. It is celebrated now, looking so fresh and contemporary, as if it was taken today. All great photography is timeless, looks like taken today, and not yesterday. The dated photographs don’t speak to me, cannot establish a communication with them. It is like yesterday’s papers. The paparazzi work. NIGHT is not a yesterday’s paper. It told the future over 30 years ago.

I still publish NIGHT today. It is my way of questioning the Internet. If we don’t question it and if we don’t doubt it we will end up in the near future having everything on our fingertips and nothing in our arms. NIGHT is not on your fingertips, it is in our arms, big beautiful, physical, not virtual. Hand-made, and not LED device.

Throughout this time you were also taking photographs of everyone on the scene, from Andy Warhol, Candy Darling, and Jean-Michel Basquiat to Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethrope, and Tennessee Williams. What was it like to photograph celebrities and personalities at that time?

AP: I didn’t photograph much celebrities, they were mostly tourists. At Studio 54 and Max’s. Truman was a regular, Bianca was a regular. I took only 2 photos of Basquiqt, one published on the first page and the other on the last page of his giant Milano catalogue. I photographed Andy for the only one reason, to capture his shyness. I photographed Candy endlessly just to capture the tranquility of her eyes. I photographed Mapplethorpe to capture l’enfant terrible. I photographed Patti Smith to capture Rimbaud or perhaps to capture the rainbow in the darkest corners of Max’s.

www.antonperich.com

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, Art, Manhattan, Photography

Ruby Ray: Punk Passage

Posted on June 30, 2010

A couple of years ago, Carlo McCormick introduced me to Ruby Ray, understanding that she and I were destined to connect as her photographs of punk as it first exploded on the West Coast are unlike anything else out there. A regular contributor to Search & Destroy, Ruby Ray’s work defined a look and a vibe that has long since gone by. What remains are her photographs, which continue to evoke and inspire a do-it-yourself ethos that is more relevant than ever. I thank Ruby Ray for chatting about her work.

Please talk about the punk scene when it was coming up on the West coast in the 70s.

There was just an explosion of energy and so many great bands and shows up and down the whole coast. And a good number of NYC and UK bands came out here. We were playing a postindustrial game and had already decided that we were the winners! It was an awakening to all the lies – we weren’t caught in the matrix! SF was so cool because it was a small city with plenty of spaces and cheap rent. Anyone with guts could put on a show or start a band.

Please talk about your work for Search & Destroy magazine. What was it like to be a part of underground publishing?

We published S&D on newsprint and laid out all the pages by hand using miniscule typewritten pages and rubber cement. The text was usually Xeroxed several times in case the glue rubbed the type off! We had these giant flats that we had to carefully place and glue all the text and photos on, like a giant collage. Cartoonists came in and volunteered hand draw logos or headlines. What should it look like, what would punk visuals consist of? These were things influencing us subconsciously; we made it up as we went along. We had books all over for ideas –situationists, punk from other places, Russian constructivists, surrealists. The hippie paper the Oracle was an inspiration, too. Layout sessions happened on tables and the floor of our apartment with everyone helping out. It was a lot of work, but invigorating! We all felt very alive and part of something important. I learned so much and met so many great people! We tried to push the limits…

Do you see any connection between the DIY ethos of that era and today’s move trends digital self-publishing and promotions?

Totally, and it’s funny you ask me that because I have only just become involved with a cartoonist/games creator in developing a worldwide, online artist gallery and self-publishing website that hasn’t launched yet. I’m planning to publish my book Punk Passage there this fall in a print-on-demand edition and other formats. This method gives me so much freedom to publish the book just as I want it. It’s the future of new media and power to the people publishing. With billions of people in the digital landscape, there is always an audience for talent. Zeitgeist of the times impels us to find new forms. We have got to find different ways for artists to survive and thrive by their works.

How did it feel to be documenting a brand new scene and subculture? What was it like seeing your work in print as things were happening?

It was fabulous and exciting! I am a person who learns by doing and punk was my art school! It challenged me to become a better photographer and allowed me free use of my creativity to come up with whatever I wanted. It was a wonderful time of experimentation. And it gave me a forum which is what any artist wants. It’s fun to collaborate. We didn’t have to be worried about sales or whether the advertisers liked what we produced, we just put it out there.

How did your photographs influence and connect to a broader audience?

Well, for a while, I thought I was doomed to obscurity! But my big punk exhibit at the SF library in 2009 showed me differently. Almost 10,000 people came to the exhibit and granted, punk is a big draw. But I found a growing number of people had who claimed inspiration from my work, and that was very gratifying. My recent punk exhibit in LA took my work to yet another level. Sometimes, you have just got to hang in there… It may be awhile before those fans accept my new images.

Who were your favorite subjects to photograph?

Penelope of the Avengers was so photogenic and very easy to work with. Everyone was in love with her back then. The Mutants were so much fun, everything they did and said was instant art! I adored meeting and photographing John Cooper Clarke in London. It was always a different experience – at the clubs you had to be surreptitious because “punks” were not into posing per se. I always tried to think of everyone as my peer so I wouldn’t become intimidated. I had to make it interesting for them too.

What is the story behind the William Burroughs photograph?

When Search & Destroy stopped publishing, we started RE/Search and were putting out a magabook on Burroughs and his work. He was glad to oblige the photographer because he knew we would do a great book on him. I was a nervous wreck and only had about 10 minutes to shoot him and I had to make do with the location where he was attending a party. We brought the guns that were the props and I choose the garden to contrast the guns with. I kept praying the whole time that the film was exposed properly, and prayed again when I had to develop it. It wasn’t like with digital cameras where every photo comes out perfectly exposed; you really have to think when using film and natural light. Bill was at ease with me and I love the way the pictures came out. I am still shooting film, by the way!

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Music, Photography