Dec 17, 2014

Opening This Friday: ART & EPHEMERA FROM 98 BOWERY, 1969-89 at the Lodge Gallery, NYC

John Feckner, “Decay,” Fashion Moda flyer, 1980

131 Chrystie Street, NYC
December 19 - 28, 2014

Opening Friday, December 19, 6 - 9 pm

Colette, “Taken away by Police,” from the series Records from the Story of My Life, 1973/78
The website 98bowery.com tells the story of the downtown art scene in the 1970s and 80s as I experienced it living in the top floor loft at 98 Bowery. These bleak years for New York were marked by economic decline, crime, drugs, and in many sections of the city, a desolate landscape of abandoned buildings and rubble-strewn lots. But for the young artists living in the Lower East Side during one of its worse moments there was a silver lining: cheap rents, camaraderie, plenty of real-life inspiration, and a do-it-yourself ethos that made anything possible. To use the ironic phrase coined by artist Joseph Nechvatal, downtown was an “Island of Negative Utopia.”
Every era creates its own type of art object. The multiples, political statements, and ephemera in this exhibition at the Lodge Gallery are representative of the deliberately transient quality and populist impulse of art in the 1970s and 80s. These are treasures that I acquired during that time, as well as vintage works that I have collected more recently for Gallery 98, the online store of the website 98bowery. In selecting the items, I have not held back. Many are masterpieces whose rich historical and aesthetic content rivals that found in more conventional art objects.
- Marc H. Miller, Curator

Sandra Fabara (Lady Pink), Home Sweet Home, silkscreen, 1989


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