~LARGE RICHARD HAMBLETON . . SOLD FOR $150,000 !!

THE SHADOWMAN . . RISES.

oh, yes.
CONTRA GALLERY . . just sold their large RICHARD HAMBLETON for $150,000 . . !!!

LONG LIVE THE LOWER EAST SIDE of the 80s & 90s !!!

LONG LIVE THE TRUE / REAL GRITTY !!!

RICHARD HAMBLETON was mean, but so were the streets / he was the real deal.
a unique voice (scream ?!!) that captured his time / let’s raise a glass to the hard-working people / the scramblers, the hustlers.
the true underground heroes of the Lower East Side, when it was raw and . . happening.

I mean, inadvertently . . he did provide us with shelter, and that (illegal) storefront kept us warm and, up & running, rent-free / for for almost 10 years – right in the heart of the action.
those were . . walk on the dark side days, and damn it he caught it / and that’s why his work is reverberating with a wider audience, today. he was a real ‘one-off’. he threw that rebel street art / right smack up against the law-of-the-jungle inner city, just before the endless waves of fine-tuned grad students descended. he made a case for the disenfranchised, and neglected.
think on it: in just a decade it would be Shepard Fairey’s ‘Obey’ giant . . . looking down from the street lamps, with their reference to nascent social media, and template expression.


RICHARD HAMBLETON, ‘Walking Woman (Beautiful)’, 1992.
acrylic paint, industrial paint on stretched canvas, 76 x 24 in.
signed & titled . . on the back / it is dated on the front.
image courtesy CONTRA GALLERY


signed & titled / on the back.
image courtesy CONTRA GALLERY


PHOTO: NANCY SMITH

a wall of . . . history in the making !!

archival black & white 35mm photographs by BEN BUCHANAN, incl a young & unknown Basquiat / & 2 RICHARD HAMBLETON paintings
the large one in the center . . .
just sold for – for $150,000.
at CONTRA GALLERY – CHELSEA.

brought to you by curator, artist, & soon-to-be filmmaker . . ALFREDO MARTINEZ.

in other words:

the so-called . . ‘REAL FAKE’ / MARTINEZ brings you . . the ‘REAL DEAL’ / SHADOWMAN / aka LITTLE RICHARD HAMBLETON
bring it on – ALFREDO !! / LONG LIVE THE ‘REAL GRIT’ . . & HARD-CORE !!!
long live – the ‘TRUE’ UNDERGROUND.

‘THE SHADOWMAN MEETS THE FEMININE’ . . . is up for 2 more weeks.
CONTRA GALLERY – 122 W 26th ST, 5th FLOOR / CHELSEA / CHECK WITH GALLERY FOR VIEWING HRS




~UP-DATE: BEN BUCHANAN & THE SHADOWMAN / & PLEASE: skip the femmes . . curators: Alfie & Jelly !!

back when New York City – rhymed with GRITTY.

there was a guy I call . . . friggin LCR / or: LITTLE ‘CRACKHEAD’ RICHARD

who wasn’t pretty.

and, friggin friggin please !!
LEAVE THE GIRLS – OUT OF IT.
LEAVE THE GIRLS – ALONE.

‘The Shadowman Meets the Feminine’ . . co-curated by ALFREDO MARTINEZ & JULIA MORRISON
CONTRA GALLERY, CHELSEA / OPENED OCT 11, 2018

‘The Shadowman Meets The Feminine’ ?
hands down, the worst title of a show . . . e-v-e-r.
Alfie, whatever . . were you thinking ?

but, esp with regard to . . POOR LITTLE RICHARD HAMBLETON.
he really was a rat. & an infected rat, at that.
a thief, and a crackhead,
and above all else, a total . . . MISOGYNIST.

HAMBLETON was the late 20th C. street art equivalent . . of HARVEY WEINSTEIN / a real predator.
and a nasty nasty one – at that. there’s no celebration in this sorry ass art life story. why do people glorify it ?
if my keyboard had emoji digits, I would be inserting a string of vomiting yellow faces right now.

I can tell you first-hand / from living just around the corner – from that vomit-inducing character . . . in the Lower east Side, in the 1980s, that he whored his girlfriends, & in particular one pretty red-haired one, (when she first arrived), name of Bonnie . . who followed him all the way down from Vancouver Canada . . .
he had her out there on Chrystie St, when it was truly, truly the devil’s Playground / in the hard-core hooker’s uniform of the day, micro-skirt and black fishnet stockings / & now with the bad skin of a druggie, luring trashy, dangerous druggie / criminal / etc lowlifes . .
& getting in their cars – for $5 blowjobs, or worse.
who else would want to touch her ?

we lived in the east storefront of 5 Rivington St., just 2 doors up from the Bowery at the time.
long story short: Simon (Cerigo, my hubby) had sublet the storefront from Richard, who had used it as a studio, while he ‘lived’ in an apt on the first floor / until he moved around the corner to Chrystie when his career ‘took off’.
we paid something like $600/month. We had just gotten gentrified out of a great loft space in Tribeca, on Franklin St., and this was all Simon & me could afford. and, had the paperwork for, & that’s a joke, btw . . . no ‘pay stubs’ needed in the L.E.S.of the 80s / the storefronts in particular – were all but abandoned, and boarded-up. crime was rife, homeless bums lined the Bowery, and flopped everywhere, competing for turf with very hardcore, and I mean heavy-duty drug dealers.
basically you kept your eyes averted at all times.
there were drug battles / cops vs dealers / dealers vs dealers / with guns & bad knives / overhead on the rooftops, and down on the streets, and through the alleys, basically 24/7.

I cried when we moved in, I had one small child and the only thing that sustained me was the ‘art’ that coursed through the nabe / just as much as the drugs. and we are talking heavy-duty drugs here, not hipster pot & designer ‘jellies’. you kind of skipped over the over-dosed, and most likely dead / like hop scotch. the storefront, which was large enough, was painted entirely black / black as night – over 100% of the surface; walls, ceiling, and even the floors . . were painted black.
black paint even covered the one back window.
Paint it black, was no longer just another teen anthem, from my suburban Montreal, coming-of-age rebellion.

ok, so fast forward a month, once we painted the place . . white, it wasn’t so bad.
we had the entire floor from back-to-front / big enough to be both studio for 2 artists, & with a high enough ceiling to paint big canvases, when we had the money, and a big enough space to store the paintings we bought and then flipped, when we had the money / including an early Jack Goldstein ‘Lightning’ (!!) . . . and to this day his largest, btw.
and a decent enough living space in back.
and, it was a great location.
location, location, location is everything, it was the friggin bleeding heart of the 80s.
we dealt . . in paintings fresh off the easel, or in Keith Harings’ case, fresh off the subway wall / and, high-end audio equipment, including very expensive tube amplifiers.
we were like the mini-Marakesh / black market . . of the Lower East Side.

for a few years Simon even had a legit gallery on Ave A & 12th St. Basquiat and Haring lived around the corner.
it was a short stroll to the Red Bar, and to any gallery that was worth seeing / from like 14th St. over to Soho . . was walking distance. Nothing was happening anywhere else, not midtown, not uptown, let alone Brooklyn. forget Queens.
walking there . . was a process, in and of itself. artists, dealers (drug dealers) and thieves mixing it up / the mafia had their HQ in Rays pizza shop on Prince St. / on many an afternoon I saw Simon and the real John Gotti . . crossing the corner / shoulder-to-shoulder, kings of different countries – unknown to each other / but, right in same ‘macho’ stride / & same build.
short & stocky, but all muscle.
in a word: PUNKS.


NANCY SMITH, & SIMON CERIGO . . . with Kate and Theo,
in front of the storefront we sublet from Richard Hambleton, 5 Rivington St, Lower East Side, NYC, ca 1989.
Photo: Scot Harrison

yeah, back in the day / when NYC rhymed with . . Gritty.

we painted the place all white, and erected . . literally, a concrete ‘bunker’ in front of the boarded-up storefront / which was once was a window. so it was very safe, inside. and everything was cool, until Little ‘Crackhead’ Richard took our rent, and didn’t pay the landlord.
about a year into living there, & then it was . . all-out war.

Simon was kind of a naturally built fighter / a natural-born street thug, a punk with a trigger temper, and a chip on his shoulder & raw, ancient Greek fisherman DNA roots. so Little ‘Crackhead’ Richard . . ran to the other side of the street when he saw him coming.
I, on the other hand had a toughness that wasn’t so obvious, but I loved those mean streets, and they loved me back. Richard once tried to run me over, with his stupid little black bike, and I mean really !!!
with viciousness in his heart, and in his intention. high on the evil crack.
yo, some pretty heavy street dealers, were a witness, and boy did they a-come running to my defense.
needless to say, that was last time, LCR / Little ‘Crackhead’ Richard . . . messed with me.

long story even shorter:
we ended up in landlord tenant court for 9 years, and we didn’t pay rent, not one thin dime for the entire 9 years. you can’t rent sub-standard non-code places – to families, with young children, even sub-tenants, in NYC.
when the Lower East Side really blew up, they paid us $80,000 cold hard cash / to get the hell, out.
5 Rivington, East Storefront, is now a 5 star hipster / Japanese upscale lifestyle joint, called ‘Green Fingers Market’, (!!), and the rent is something like $12 grand, or was it $20 grand / a month, I stopped counting years, ago.


so, do I really want to promote, let alone, review a show – on Richard Hambleton. what do you think ?
esp, one with such a lame – title ?
Alfie, whatever were you thinking ?
I know, let me guess. the pot of gold, at the end of the art market rainbow.
long live dead artists . . !!!!!!
long live dead Street artists . . even more !!!!
they are even better after the fact – that’s fer sure. & a hell of a lot easier to deal with, too.
dead.

ps: dig that bulldog clip – keeping the cold out. classic Hambleton.


RICHARD HAMBLETON – LOS ANGELES, 1986 / PHOTO BY: BEN BUCHANAN

good grief.
I know talking bad about the dead is in poor form, but wtf ??!!!
I always knew Basquiat would be a real long term contender, but LCR ? / Little ‘Crackhead’ Richard ?
never.
we had a piece of his, and dumped it as soon as possible. double your money – and, out.
listen up my young millennials / there’s gold in them thar trash / where you least expect it.


no, my interest lies more in the . . . back story.

with BEN BUCHANAN, who has a small wall of his archival photos / now art world legends, and a couple of Hambeltons pieces,
at Contra, a scruffy enough spot btw, as to provide some strange relief / from the endless ‘hipster-dom’ of Brooklyn, Ridgewood, and Queens.

BEN, now located in London, was a 20-something stumbling about the scene, like we all were.
like: this is just New York Friggin City – party on !!!
when his boss at AREA, gave him those famous last words:
“YO, YOU !! YES, YOU KID !! – TAKE SOME PHOTOS !!!!!!”


accidental photographer, BEN BUCHANAN . . photog of art world legends, including Basquiat & yes, even LCR / Little ‘Crackhead’ Richard.

so, fast forward to last night, OCT 12, 2018 / thanks to the show’s co-curator, Alfredo Martinez,
who has a friendship with Ben going back decades, here, here in this grimy, almost forsaken Chelsea ‘street art’ gallery of a puppy mill, here’s the accidental photog, with a big grin, and why the F, not ?
cool AF, indeed.

and with a couple of LCR / Little ‘Crackhead’ Hambleton paintings, that he prob got off Poor Richard . . for ciggie money, and that he’s now hoping to get big bucks for / the ‘golden’ one above to the left, and the larger ‘Shadowman’ . . behind him.
grin away, dude – all the power to ya.
you deserve every penny you get. it’s the early pix, that make these short-lived legends, that burst so gloriously into flames, and died too soon, come to life.


‘JMB /JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT . . at Boy George’s birthday party at AREA, NYC. 1985’.
PHOTO BY BEN BUCHANAN, PRINTED 2018 / EDITION 1/5.


‘JMB Needle on the record at AREA NYC 1985’.
PHOTO BY BEN BUCHANAN, PRINTED 2018 / EDITION 1/5


a RICHARD HAMBLETON painting, from his own collection,
which photog Ben Buchanan has up for sale at . . CONTRA GALLERY.
along with his photographs.
hey . . as I was told, a few times !! / artnet sold a Hambleton for over $150,000 last week !!


at the opening:
BEN BUCHANAN, and co-curator of ‘The Shadowman meets the Feminine’ . . ALFREDO MARTINEZ.
(Alfie was up all night, hanging the show.)
lol, unraveling the artlovers code:
he’s . . Alfie when he got dough / and just plain Alfredo the rest of the time.


JELLY aka JULIA MORRISON, the other curator of the show, with her own, (2) coming of age . . paintings.


I SPY WITH MY LITTLE, not . . crackhead eye:
an ALFREDO MARTINEZ gun painting on the wall.
what, dated 2013 ?
I told you, his (current) work was – all sold out !!


OUT OF SIGHT, in Los Vegas, BUT NOT . . FORGOTTEN !!
a knock-dead gorgeous / ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ LIGHT-BOX – by JOSH HARRIS.

‘PSEUDO’ BOSS & MILLENNIUM PARTY ‘QUIET’ MC . . yes, that JOSH ‘LUVVY’ HARRIS.
to be played by the super hot !! JONAH HILL / in a ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ / TAKE-TWO . . .
a BEN STILLER helmmed Hollywood feature re-make / coming to a theater near you . . . soon.

a classic . . . ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ light-box – by the man / JOSH HARRIS himself !!!!!!
I’d scoop that up, in a nano-second, if I had a pocketful of cash, no doubt about it.
ah, thank god the (mainstream) art world is full of dummies, or else, where would I . . be ?
or: you could put it this way / thank god I have no pocket full of dough, or I’d just be buying, and not writing / and laughing . . like a little piggy / all the way home.

PHOTOS OF THE OPENING: NANCY SMITH




~’The Shadowman meets The Feminine’ . . CONTRA GALLERY, Chelsea / OPENS THURS OCT 11

ALF & JELLY PRESENT:

‘The Shadowman meets The Feminine’
opens to-nite . . THURS OCT 11 / 6 – 10 PM
CONTRA GALLERY, 122 W. 26th St., 5th Fl, Chelsea, NYC

A GROUP SHOW CURATED BY: ALFREDO MARTINEZ & JULIA MORRISON


RICHARD HAMBLETON aka The Shadowman
image via Contra Gallery


ALFREDO MARTINEZ & JULIA ‘JELLY’ MORRISON, CHELSEA, NYC. SEPT 24, 2018.
PHOTO: NANCY SMITH

Alfredo has hired Julia Morrison, or JELLY as her friends know her . . .
to star in a short film he is making . . with filmmakers TOM JARMUSCH & MEGHAN MILLER.
the film will star Jelly, as a sort of dystopian heroine, against a raw & gritty real world / NYC backdrop – and will feature Alfredo’s . . customized ‘prop’ guns.




~AUTO BODY . . ‘REAP WHAT YOU SOW’ / BELLPORT, N.Y.

best, pay attention, y’all !!!!!!!

AUTO BODY . . . a curatorial group and creative platform, based in BELLPORT, N.Y.,
has just installed their Summer 2018 Parrish Art Museum ‘road show’ piece, an . . . all-at-once incredible / conceptual & yet: down-home rural road sign . . . ‘REAP WHAT YOU SOW’ (!!!!!)
on a more permanent site, an apparently ‘working’ farm / owned by ISABELLA ROSSELLINI, & currently farmed by Early Girl Farm . . which grows sustain-ably farmed vegetables / for wholesale & retail.

see: Auto Body – about
see: ‘Down on the Farm with ISABELLA ROSSELLINI’ – by RUTH LA FERLA, NEW YORK TIMES, MAY 10, 2018.
see: ‘Early Girl Farm – Get Serious With Your Produce’

AUTO BODY, ‘REAP WHAT YOU SOW’, 2018. ROAD SIGNAGE / ISABELLA ROSSELLINI FARM, LONG ISLAND, N.Y.
image via Instagram @_auto_body




~PATRICK MOHUNDRO . . ‘GREEN BURRITO’ / ‘SPEED DATING’ / PETE’S CANDY STORE

NEW AGE SLIME meets ANCIENT ART of KINTSUGI . . . .

PATRICK MOHUNDRO, ‘Glazed Brick Glued Back Together with Kintsugi (Urushi with Gold Powder),
and Rubber made from Speedstick Deodorant, Gelatin, and Glycerin’, 2018.

Patrick Carlin Mohundro . . is currently an MFA Candidate / Hunter College, NYC

image via Instagram @mo_hun_dro




~’SPEED DATING’ . . PETE’S CANDY STORE, WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN / TUES OCT 9 / 6-10 PM

SHOUT OUT TO: PATRICK MOHUNDRO !!!!

ONE NIGHT ONLY !! – TUES OCT 9, 2018 / 6 – 10 PM

‘SPEED DATING ‘ . . . !!!!!
16 ARTISTS . . . !!!!!
PETE’S CANDY STORE – 709 LORIMER ST., WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN

MUSIC BY ELIZABETH MOEN

BIG GROUP SCULPTURE SHOW / IN THE GARDEN – CURATED BY: BOMBPOP!UP -&- CALLI MOORE

PANEL OF LOVE JURY DELIBERATIONS -&- PEOPLE’S CHOICE BALLOT COUNT: 9:15 PM

SPEED DATING . . . is an interactive sculpture show curated from a month-long open call process by BombPop!Up, and Calli Moore, of See You Next Thursday Art Auction.
The show encapsulates the absurdity, newness, and excitement of speed dating in relation to digital experiences of sharing and curating artworks through the format of the open call. As in a speed (or online date), the works (and the audience) will meet at the same time and place for the first time during the exhibition, creating a live-action sense of aesthetic chemistry. ‘Speed Dating’ addresses these themes with a sense of humor, while underscoring the extent to which digital processes have come to affect our materialrealities in art, as in life.”
~mission statement by the curators / BOMBPOP!UP & CALLIE MOORE


PETE’S CANDY STORE – WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN
see: PETE’S CANDY STORE HISTORY




~ANTONE KONST . . ‘FREE PEDDLER’ / SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK / OPENS SUN OCT 6

ANTONE KONST . . ‘FREE PEDDLER’ / in the big group show:
‘THE SOCRATES ANNUAL EXHIBIT/2018’
OPENS SUN OCT 7 / 3 – 6 PM
the show is outdoors & runs thru . . MARCH 10, 2019
SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK, 32-01 VERNON BLVD, ASTORIA, QUEENS, NY

The exhibition features 15 new public artworks by the Park’s 2018 Artist Fellows.
more info: SOCRATES ANNUAL EXHIBIT/2018

FREE PEDDLER . . takes the trope of the peddler and repurposes her back-pack as a shelf,
which visitors to the park can add things to, or take things from, as they please.
I plan to stock the shelf with some goodies like tampons, books, condoms, ramen, doggie bags, etc,
but I also will be encouraging donations of more esoteric bric-a-brac.”
~ANTONE KONST


ANTONE KONST, ‘FREE PEDDLER’, 2018 / monumental / free-standing i.e. bigger than life size !!
actually: 9 x 9 x 5 ft.
image courtesy of the artist




~MATT LEINES . . ‘THE GREEN ROOM’ / MUDDGUTS / BROOKLYN / OPENS FRI OCT 5

MATT LEINES . . ‘THE GREEN ROOM’
OPENS FRI OCT 5 / 6 – 8 PM
MUDDGUTS, 427 GRAHAM AVE, BROOKLYN
HRS: WED-FRI 4-8PM / SAT-SUN 12-8PM


MATT LEINES . . .
IMAGE via Instagram @mattleines




~JAMES MILLER . . Y2K GROUP / TRIBECA / OPENS FRI OCT 5

Y2K GROUP PRESENTS:
LUCY LORD CAMPANA, ANGELA HEISCH, CLINTON KING, JAMES MILLER, BRIDDGET MULLEN
OPENING FRI OCT 5 / 6 – 9 PM
show runs . . OCT 9 – NOV 4, 2018
Y2K GROUP, 373 BROADWAY, #E18, TRIBECA, NYC
HRS: BY APPOINTMENT


JAMES MILLER, acrylic on canvas, 2018. 36 x 32 in.
image via Instagram @skinlizard




~JAMES MILLER . . MEYOHAS / SUNDAY ART FAIR / LONDON / OCT 4-7

if in LONDON,
CHECK OUT THESE KNOCKOUT JAMES MILLER PAINTINGS / at MEYOHAS GALLERY, Booth 21 !!
SUNDAY ART FAIR – OPENING TODAY, THURS OCT 4, 2018


SARAH MEYOHAS . . in front of the JAMES MILLER / MEYOHAS GALLERY installation / PHOTO: @h.i.l.l.t.o.p.
SUNDAY ART FAIR 2018
image via Instagram @sarahmeyohas