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There is a history of painters who paint what they know, and there is a history of painters who paint whom they know. Caravaggio based his paintings of the Madonna and the saints on the rough-and-tumble denizens of his demimonde. Many a prostitute posed as the Virgin Mary, queen of heaven. In the 1880s Toulouse-Lautrec painted the people … Continued
What is the concept of this show? My Father Was a Satyr is an autobiographical myth rooted in the universal theme of “the hero’s journey” and other archetypes of mythology described in the work of Joseph Campbell. This is the story of my life, beginning with a childhood steeped in art and nature, where … Continued
Art worlds were often rooted in a distinctive milieu, and artworks generated in Montmartre pre-World War I, say, or London’s Chelsea post-World War II, are more likely to clue you in to the time and place of their making than the art produced nowadays, which has become a global industry. Antony Zito’s art does just … Continued
I’ve been a fan (and friend) of Zito’s for several decades now. I call him “Pirate Zito,” partly because of his somewhat piratical appearance, but more because of the attitude and approach to his creative expression. (Also, for some years now, Zito and I have been mutually convinced that in previous lives, in a previous … Continued
On the most amazing day you were born and you were died We was waiting for you everywhere and you surprised us By showing up everywhere else Where once were bottles now only bottlecaps hang in mid-joint Waiting for the air to turn into red wine and cheeseburgers And the bottlecaps without bottles will be … Continued
Antony Zito: My Father Was a Satyr November 22 – December 22, 2019 Antony Zito is a portrait painter and collector of objects, who moved to the Lower East Side from New England in 1992. Zito has spent more than 20 years on New York’s Lower East Side, where he ran a gallery and portrait … Continued
Watching some of Tessa’s hallucinatory classics like Instinct: Bitches Side is my idea of cinematic pleasure: a bizarre mix of Bette Davis, Mae West, a spider, and a sexy seductress, all driven by a score echoing film history. Tessa has been at it since the early 80s, making films for no money…films clearly stamped with … Continued
For some 40 years, Tessa Hughes-Freeland has been, in her own highly idiosyncratic way, carving out an utterly unique place within the realm of art and film. Sometimes it makes sense, corresponding with cultural currents that have placed her work firmly within a recognizable context, allowing us to see her as part of something larger, … Continued
The world as seen in Tessa Hughes-Freeland’s early films is one of startling extremities. In movies such as her do-it-yourself go-go dancer documentary Baby Doll (1982), shot at Tribeca’s fabled Baby Doll Lounge, or Dirty (1992), her unrelenting adaptation of George Bataille’s tale of excremental abjection Le Bleu du Ciel (Blue of Noon) made with … Continued
Click Here to view the catalog for Linus Coraggio’s Ramifications. For all that we spend countless lives and generations just trying to figure things out—as if the folly of understanding the world and universe around us were endemic to the human condition—there is a place where logic ends, and that too constitutes a fundamental place … Continued