Words Andy Thomas In 1986, if you walked east along discussions. They overlooked Rivington Street, in New York’s Lower everything that was not strictly for East Side, you would be confronted profit and tried to pretend it didn’t by a hulk of metal that twisted into exist,” says Kantor. “While highbrow the air like a giant spider hauling museum scholars wrote their essays itself from the earth. It was welded on auction winners, bestsellers and together, over many dope-fuelled gallery favourites, we had parties in nights, by a collection of artists, abandoned buildings and empty lots.” musicians and outsiders known Although critics and cultural as the Rivington School, who had historians overlooked the Rivington salvaged the abandoned cars and School, it was an important strand scrap metal that littered their to 1980s New York art. “It might neighbourhood. They christened sound contradictory, but the it the Rivington Sculpture Garden. Rivington School was not part A year later it was bulldozed by the of the downtown art scene,” says city, eager to capitalise on the area’s Kantor. “The downtown art scene property boom – which in turn was mostly meant the East Village driven by the art scene at the end of wannabe galleries and nightclubs, the street, where artists such as Keith seeking recognition and money, Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat dominated by fashion and cheap were gaining international glamour. The Rivington School recognition. Visit the corner of was a guerrilla-style art community Rivington and Forsyth today and camping in the ruins of a remote you’ll find luxury condos, built in area in the Lower East Side.” 1988, worth millions of dollars. With essays from a collection “The Lower East Side kept of Rivington renegades, along with producing mythological art heroes the incredible photographs of Toyo such as David Wojnarowicz and Tsuchiya, Rivington School: 80s New Richard Hambleton,” writes artist York Underground feels long overdue. Istvan Kantor (aka Monty Cantsin) What became known as the in his new book, Rivington School: Rivington School had its roots 80s New York Underground. “But at No Se No social club, a steamy, behind the celebrity facades there dimly lit basement that opened on were some concealed, rat-infested Rivington Street in 1983. The club territories, surrounded by decay, was founded by ‘Cowboy’ Ray Kelly, ruins and scrapmetal.” who first came to New York from In the early to mid-1980s, a group Texas in the mid-1960s to study at of maverick street artists, sculptors the Art Students League, becoming and performers created a gritty and an assistant to Mark Rothko. “New anarchic alternative to New York’s York was really cheap then, so we hip art scene. “A new breed of artists bought a large building for $50,000 got fed up with Soho’s growing on the Lower East Side. I was doing dictatorship,” Kantor tells me. “The construction, painting and started Lower East Side seemed to be a doing sculptures using water and perfect territory to get away and to light,” he tells me. “But I moved back Fence of the Sculpture free themselves from the complete to Texas some time in the ’70s to run Garden on Forsyth Street, control of market machinations. It the family farm. Then, after my father New York, 1988 Photograph was a time to make shit happen and died, my brother and l bought a farm Andre Laredo that’s what we did full time.” The in Belize where l lived for several story of Rivington School is one years. I wasn’t doing much art then. of resistance and rebellion that has Rothko had committed suicide and In the 1980s, a group of artists, musicians and free thinkers been lost beneath the legend of the I thought that painting was a dead downtown scene. “The tools of the end.” He was drawn back to New formed an experimental collective in New York’s Lower East Side. media were in the hands of the York in the early ’80s. “Things corporate-driven gentrified art world were starting to happen on the At last the movement is receiving the recognition it deserves. that had no interest in socio-political Lower East Side by then,” he says. “There were still lots of drugs, junkies and prostitutes, but you had galleries like ABC No Rio and the Storefront for Art and Architecture.” In 1983, he began looking for an alternative art and performance RIVINGTON SCHOOL space inspired by Club 57 in the East Rivington School Village and other underground art events. These in New York that took place partly in East Village would be a different performance, Side alternative spaces, artist retained, giving it a kind of Caribbean included the infamous ‘Shit Show’ held in 1982 and Lower East Side locations,” he says. “We had which Toyo would photograph and collectives, non-profit organisations, feel, but soon that was subsumed at the Kwok Gallery on Mott Street and the a campfire on Houston Street, burning paintings post the following night,” says Ray and small independent galleries,” by graffiti. Eventually, it would look ‘Performance A-Z’ series at Storefront for Art and donated by local artists. I was fascinated by the Kelly. “That was really fun because says Kantor. “They were all working worse than the CBGB’s bathroom. Architecture on Prince Street. He found the space landscape and insane energy.” you never knew what to expect, together, shaping each other.” As Often the floor smelled of whiskey, in one of the roughest areas of the Lower East Side. Linus Coraggio came across the No Se No space sort of like open mic, anyone could early as 1980, arts centre ABC No stale beer, Marlboros, and week-old “Rivington Street was like the stock market in the in 1983, during his last year at art school, where he book a night and perform.” “Leave Rio had been squatting buildings vomit. Sanitation was not its strong morning, only they were selling drugs,” says Kelly. was making politically themed wall relief sculpture Yer Preconceptions at the Door, around the Lower East Side with suit and there was no ventilation.” “A friend of mine, R.L. Seltman, found the No Se using found objects and welding. “I took a walk on Shithead” announced the flyer to their Real Estate Show celebrating Carter compares the rather No space. It was a former Puerto Rican after-hours the Lower East Side in search of signs of a parallel the free events that ran seven nights “Insurrectionary Urban confrontational communication club that was busted for drugs.” cool existence I knew had to be there,” he says. “I a week. Many of those that appeared Development”. Other spaces are between performers and audience at As the photographs in the book show, the walked into 42 Rivington and met Ray Kelly and had also performed at the ‘Shit Show’. similarly long gone, wiped out by the ‘99 Nights’ with other strands of the Rivington Street of the mid-1980s was almost Freddie the Dreamer [aka Fred Bertucci], who were This included the instigator Kwok rapid regeneration, but their myth New York underground of the early post-apocalyptic. “Getting closer to Houston you painting the inside totally black with smelly enamel Mang Ho, performance art pioneer remains. The best known at the time 1980s. “The initial crew at No Se could already smell a different air,” says Kantor. paint.” Initially thinking they were just “nutty and filmmaker Arleen Schloss, was Freddie the Dreamer, opened No was mostly an inside crowd, later “Crossing Houston was like crossing a border into a old-guy freaks”, he returned a few months later with dancer/choreographer Christa next to No Se No in 1984 by adding the outer fringe of performers new realm, the landscape became totally different: his friend Ken Hiratsuka (now a well known stone Gamper and Christine Hatfull, Rivington artist Fred Bertucci. And and musicians who knew each other, ruined buildings, poverty, junkies, rats, no glamour sculptor, whose first works were carvings along the actress from sci-fi film Liquid Sky. in the same year another No Se No at least well enough to offer taunts at all, empty lots, crap all over the place. It was a sidewalks of New York). “I already had that ‘get the Some of the others who performed regular, Jim C, opened the Nada and insults, similar to what occurred danger zone with a postwar climate. I grew up in a fuck out of my way I want to do something’ attitude included musicians and multimedia Gallery at 40 Rivington Street. in the early days of rap and poetry ruined world in Eastern Europe, so I felt at home.” and stance, but Rivington would intensify those artists Julius Klein and Raken “They could survive because it slams,” he says. “It was also a kind It was into this environment that Kantor plunged feelings of autonomy,” he says. Leaves; filmmaker Kembra Pfahler; was pre-gentrification times and of experimental lab, where you didn’t himself, travelling from Montreal, where he had The No Se No came to prominence as a multimedia artists Bradley Eros and rents were still low,” says Kantor. know whether what you did would founded the experimental neoist art movement. performance space in the summer of 1983, Aline Mare; artists John Beckmann “Artists could move to the Lower East elicit loud boos, raucous laughter or “In 1982, I organised a neoist apartment festival through the ‘99 Nights’ programme. “Each night and Peggy Cyphers; as well as Taylor Side from all around the world, get cat calls.