Book Signing and Panel Discussion

A World in Which—an allusion to the Zapatista slogan, “A world in which many worlds fit.” (Un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos.)

Howl! Happening is pleased to present an evening celebrating the release of Alan Moore’s Art Worker: Doing Time in the NY Artworld, a memoir that casts a raking light on a classic period in cultural history—the 70s and 80s in downtown Manhattan. Confirmed participants in the panel discussion: Marc H. Miller, Yasmin Ramirez, Leonard Abrams, Alan W. Moore, Stephen Zacks. Published this year by Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Press, books will be on sale at the event.

The New York City artworld of the late 20th century seems far more fluid and changeable, with many more positions for its different actors to inhabit than the artworld of today. The market rules in all spheres of image-making, enforced by super-high valuations of traditional artwork, and global social media and streaming platforms.

From art critic and video artist to radical organizer and academic, Moore played multiple roles in a seething scene of art galleries, nightclubs, and small publications. Written in an accessible style, Art Worker is in three parts, with characters, anecdotes, footnotes, and an extensive bibliography. It’s a book by a scholar written for a general audience.

About the Participants

Alan W. Moore worked as a critic, artist, and organizer in NYC for 30 years. He worked with the artists’ group Colab, and co-directed ABC No Rio and the MWF Video Club. He took a PhD in Art History from CUNY in 2000, and published Art Gangs in 2011. He has recently studied squatting in Europe; he published the zine House Magic (2009-16), co-edited Making Room: Cultural Production in Occupied Spaces and wrote Occupation Culture (both 2015). He lives in Madrid, and blogs at “Occupations & Properties” and “Art Gangs”. His book Art Worker launches this month.

Marc H Miller arrived in New York from California in 1968 and lived at 98 Bowery, NYC from 1969 to 1989 with extended stays in Washington DC and Amsterdam, Holland.  Miller is an artist, curator, writer, publisher, and educator.  His multi-faceted career is unified by an interest in pictorial images and their inherent ability to tell stories. He holds a Ph.D. in art history from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts (1979). He runs the website 98bowery.com.

Yasmin Ramirez is an art worker, curator, and writer. She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the Graduate Center, CUNY.  Born in Brooklyn, Ramirez was active in the downtown art scene of the early 1980s as a club kid and art critic for the East Village Eye. She has curated exhibitions on the Young Lords, Martin Wong, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the Nuyorican art movement, and collaborated on curatorial projects with the Bronx Museum, El Museo Del Barrio, the Loisaida Center, the New Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Franklin Furnace, and Taller Boricua.

Leonard Abrams is a writer, editor, and filmmaker. He was editor and publisher of the East Village Eye monthly newsmagazine, in circulation from May 1979 until January 1987. From 1987-89 he co-produced the underground clubs Milky Way and Hotel Amazon, venues that mixed early hip hop with reggae, funk, soul and house music. In 2007 he made the documentary film “Quilombo Country,” about contemporary Brazilian communities founded by escaped slaves. He presented the East Village Eye Show at Howl Happening in 2016. 

Stephen Zacks is an advocacy journalist, architecture writer, urbanist, and project organizer based in New York City. He publishes regularly in Abitare, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Architect’s Newspaper, Architectural Record, Art in America, Dwell, Landscape Architecture, Oculus, and Metropolis. He was director of the Flint Public Art Project, co-founder of the Bring to Light–Nuit Blanche festival, and past co-director of Collective Unconscious performance space. He wrote Situationist Funhouse on the work of artist G.H. Hovagimyan which launches this month.

Photo: Alan Moore in 1975 by Marc Miller.