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By Felix Gatopardo
Recently,
I have been obsessed with the 1980s East Village (E.V.) art scene.
I’ve devoured books documenting the period and talked to folks
who lived in New York at that time. I also checked out the recent
New Museum (“East Village U.S.A.”) and Brooklyn Museum
(“Basquiat”) shows dedicated to art from the period.
It seems like there was so much exciting stuff going on back then:
art galleries were established inside people’s bathrooms (the “loo
division” at Gracie Mansion’s East 9th street apartment “for
the viewing at close range” of the artwork of East Village
artists); and fab ladies—playwright Ana Maria Simo, filmmaker Ela
Troyano, performance artist Karen Finley, and musicians in ESG and
Bush Tetras—and fab boys—including photographer Peter Hujar, painter
Keith Haring, and writer Miguel Pinero—were creating provocative
work.
Several factors contributed to the
evolution of the E.V. as a mecca for cutting edge artists. By
1970, the gentrification of
SoHo forced
artists to seek new grounds. Graduates fresh from art school
poured into neighborhoods where the rents were cheap (e.g., Alphabet
City
and lower Manhattan). Apartments there were affordable because
landlords were desperate to rent out their abandoned buildings.
Punk and new
wave thrived at CBGBs, and nightlife venues such as the Mudd
Club in Tribeca and Danceteria on 23rd Street featured performance
art,
underground films, and live music. (My boss, Ted—who was
an artsy gay boy attending New York University back then—told
me that in
the days before MTV, you could only see music videos at clubs.)
Pre-AIDS and post-Stonewall, gender and sexuality were fluid
without need
of a manifesto. A new Bohemia had been born in which a “nexus
of music, fashion, and art created a distinctive downtown aesthetic.” Graffiti
was hot for a New York minute—artists of color made it
into lily-white galleries and were the toast of the town. The
1980s Wall Street
bull market made investing in art the equivalent of purchasing
stocks,
turning flash-in-the pan painters Julian Schnabel, David Salle,
and Robert Longo into superstars. Then, as sudden as it had started,
the E.V. art scene ended—by 1987, the stock market had
crashed, real estate prices had risen, and AIDS and drug addiction
had claimed
the lives of beautiful artfags (David Wojnarowicz, Nicolas Moufarrege,
Tseng Kwong Chi, Klaus Nomi, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Manuel Ramos
Otero,
Jack Smith, Ethyl Eichelberger, Jimmy De Sana, Essex Hemphill,
among many others). Still, it had been a vibrant and exhilarating
scene
made possible by the interaction and commingling of immigrants,
exiles, and transplants.
Despite the E.V.’s problems—an
overemphasis of boy privilege, abuse of coke and heroin, and
the lack of an overt revolutionary
political ideology—this was an ideal creative community.
A close-knit network of artists who helped each other out, its
legacy is priceless.
See, for example, ACT-UP’s AIDS activism, the Guerrilla
Girls’ denunciations
against the art world’s prejudices, and former Klaus Nomi
collaborator Joey Arias’ conquest of the masses in Cirque
Du Soleil. In addition, venues that were founded in the 1980s,
like P.S. 122
and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (and, until recently, Charas/El
Bohio), continue to present outstanding theater and performance.
What appeals to me about the E.V. is the idea of a community
of Others in which our difference is what makes us special and
bonds
us to
one another. How else would Wojnarowicz make absolute sense to
an immigrant who didn’t know she was queer until she read
his accounts of anonymous sex at the piers? And yet, although our
current
historical conditions appear similar to those in the 1980s for
we are again living under the rule of Republican tyrants, there
is little
chance of a radical art renaissance.
Why do I believe that? Let me give you an example: I recently
attended a packed art opening at a downtown space. The event's
popularity
implied a commonality; after all, we were there for the same
reason, right? Still, there seemed to be something missing: a
palpable
sense of community. You couldn’t fit one more person inside the gallery,
but everyone was sub-divided into cliques. There were the artsy dykes,
nerdy fags, greasy tranny bois, and crusty organizers. There might
have been some overlap of categories, but curiously enough, there
was no mingling. Instead, there were these artificial boundaries
that were not crossed. Those of us who didn’t fit into any
of the cliques were invisible. I felt like I was in the middle of
a bizarre John Hughes movie: The music and fashion were the same
as I remembered from "The Breakfast Club," but this time,
the geeks had become the bullies. (Of course, I felt further alienated
by being one of a handful of non-white attendees.)
My sense of isolation is shared. Take Nicole, a biracial writer
and teacher, who believes that “there is no worse feeling than
being lonely in a crowd.” Or African-American FTM Ian, who
deems hipster scenes as places where the cool kids get together to “escape
all the ‘isms,’” but that only end up “recreating
and reinforcing them to the point of near suffocation.”
Ironically, the cool folks at the art opening view themselves
as transgressive and nonconformist. But what is so radical about
being
a snob? I don’t see people mixing with each other—on the contrary,
we’re happy to inbreed. We don’t go to other people’s
parties, art openings, film screenings, or music shows. When we coincide
at an event, we ignore each other. We don’t acknowledge people
we have met before, with whom we have had actual conversations. My
questions for those who don’t go outside of their cliques are:
What can you say to your friend today—someone you see and talk to
every day—that you haven’t said to them already? Or that couldn’t
wait until tomorrow? Why not step out of your comfort zones and
talk to someone new, someone different? Why close yourselves to
potential
allies, lovers, and collaborators? Why keep yourselves isolated?
We are outsiders, the high school geeks all grown up who formed
our own club of cool. We redefined what it meant to be hip. But
there
is conformity in the margins. We dress alike; we think alike.
A consequence of this is that we don’t find value in those who are different
from us because we believe that they have nothing to offer. There
is a lack of solidarity, of empathy. Of an attempt at empathy! Jeez,
even in Catholic Sunday mass you turn to your neighbor—a stranger—to
shake their hand and wish them peace. As Nicole states, “building
community takes work.”
I want to resist succumbing to nostalgia; again, the E.V. had
its problems (some of which I delineated above). But its inclusiveness
and cultural diversity was the opposite of the cliquishness and
snobbish
behavior exhibited at contemporary New York art events.
What I’m proposing, then, is adopting an “East Village
state of mind.” Let’s become true outsiders not because
we don’t fit in within a privileged status quo, but because
we belong to a movement that fights to dismantle it. My community
of Others stands in solidarity with every Black family who loses
a son to police brutality, Palestinian boy who gets shot for throwing
rocks at Israeli tanks, developing world citizen who resists overwhelming
imperialist forays into her country, and undocumented worker who
works for low pay and no benefits. We are artists who create exciting
work because we open ourselves to life. I don’t need heroes
because my community is filled with visionaries, people who inspire
me and give me courage. And my community is growing.
Sources:
Downtown 81 (Original title: New York Beat Movie, directed by
Edo Bertoglio, 1981)
Smithereens (Directed by Susan Seidelman,1982)
Liquid Sky (Directed by Slava Tsukerman, 1982)
Parting Glances (Directed by Bill Sherwood, 1986)
Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art by Phoebe Hoban (Penguin Books,
1999)
East Village USA by Dan Cameron, Editor (New Museum of Contemporary
Art, 2005)
Conversations with Ted, Ian, and Nicole, 2004-5
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