Words Andy Thomas

In 1986, if you walked east along discussions. They overlooked , 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 .” 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 . “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 , 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 and the a campfire on , 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 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 filmLiquid 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. Nobody got it more than Mead and Jackie Curtis, associates a cheap studio and start a gallery or Mike Keane, who would suddenly Angela Idealism and of Andy Warhol. performance space. There were also drop his trousers halfway through David Andrew Bennet No Se No was one of a number tons of abandoned buildings to take his weekly poetry rant.” after performing with It was like crossing a border into a new of spaces in the neighbourhood over and squat.” ‘99 Nights’ heralded the beginning their band, Womb managed by artists and built on the As soon as he set eyes on No Se No, of one of New York’s most Service, at Cuando, East Village, New York, realm, you could smell a new air: ruined principles that art and activism Kantor knew it was his kind of place. underground performance spaces. 1985 Photograph should be for everyone. “There were “I was really fascinated by the venue “Thematically, its focus was parodic, Jeffrey Schwarz buildings, empty lots, rats, no glamour. important links to most Lower East itself,” he says. “It was a small dark lampooning what we today associate bunker with a bar. The ambience with the early baby boomers that they was a great part of the performances. were rebelling against, with a heavy Outside No Se No social club, There was no glamourous decoration accent on gay/LBGT/drag underworld Ray Kelly, Tovey Halleck, Jack Vengrow, John Wayne and David Rivington Street, New York, 1983 or blinding light show. You felt culture, though it was also a haven Mora Catlett, circa 1985 Photograph Toyo Tsuchiya Photograph Toyo Tsuchiya yourself immediately somewhat and laboratory for edgy performers different as you entered. You got and musicians, such as Rhys confronted by the space and became Chatham and Y Pants,” says Carter. part of the show.” No Se No would soon rival its more Poet, writer and performance artist famous East Village neighbour Club Michael Carter, co-editor of the book, 57. “Around the end of ’82, Club 57 was similarly drawn in on his first had reached its nadir,” says Carter. visit to one of the ‘99 Nights’. “It was “Many of the folk I met there became Julius Klein who first dragged me kind of the last gasp or last wave of down there, for this ‘fashion show’ Club 57 and in 1983 gravitated where the models all wore paper towards this little shithole on couture created and painted by a Rivington Street.” The grotty Taiwanese artist named Kwok [who basement was far removed from its had staged the infamous ‘Shit Show’]. hip East Village neighbour, where But I totally dug the place and asked many of the No Se No instigators had them if I could do a show.” migrated. “As opposed to 57, it was He remembers the clandestine free and raw, no tickets, it was atmosphere of the venue well. “No cheaper, and you could get away with Se No was an old illegal Puerto Rican almost anything short of out and out social club. The title means, ‘I Know violence,” says Carter. “There was Nothing’, which says everything,” he definitely a ‘cute’ factor about 57 that tells me. “It was officially members you would never experience at No Se. only at the beginning, geared to an People at 57 cared as much about inside clientele, and drinks were their attire as their attitude. There sub-rosa [secret]. It was an old-school certainly was no dress code at No Se; storefront that was sunken a few steps if anything, it was hillbilly flannel.” below street level. Especially in the No Se No was just one of a number early days, a lot of the decor was of performance venues for alternative

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grew as other artists built around the metal tower created by Coraggio. Tsuchiya and Tovey Halleck People would congregate without a hung up two pieces of a 50ft ladder sculpture, created by Kazuko Miyamoto, from old rope and city permit to drink beer, create art, branches. Hiratsuka created his two-ton carved stone piece and Michael Zwicky added a twisted make noise and cause mayhem. wooden structure. The whole space was suddenly alive with sparking blue flames of welding torches and the artists. “There were just a plethora of places back “There were actually no closing hours red-hot magma of melting iron. “As it developed, then,” says spoken word/performance artist Angela until whomever had to close it said what made it bigger was more cars were abandoned Idealism (aka Angela Repellent). “They were so,” says Carter. “And even then the and more material would be dragged in, so each car everywhere, all over the East Village and Lower party would continue, in the lot or would serve as a to weld off of,” says Coraggio. East Side. There was a bar called Downtown Beirut streets nearby. Street parties outside As many as 400 people would congregate without that really did look like somebody had bombed it. No Se No on any given night a city permit to drink beer, have open fires, create With all the vacant lots everywhere full of rubble generated a kind of proto-rave art, make noise, and cause general mayhem. and broken glass, it was such a raw canvas you felt environment.” Often the party moved So what was it like to work in this anarchic like you could do anything.” to the vacant lot at nearby Rivington outdoor space? “It was pretty insane but fun,” says In the latter part of 1984, No Se No staged and Forsyth, where the Rivington Coraggio. “Just odd having random people, bums several exhibitions as it was transformed into a Sculpture Garden was born in 1985. or jobless Puerto Ricans watching you without performance space and gallery. “There was a show The Sculpture Garden began as a saying anything. The public’s reaction varied from by E.F. Higgins III that really sticks in my mind,” reaction to the creeping gentrification uncomprehending confusion to amused disbelief says Kantor. “He put up a large selection of his in pockets of the Lower East Side. mostly. But nobody ever complained about the smaller-size ‘Firecrackers’ paintings, filling up “Once the city got the lot cleared they noise or the art.” The artists responded by opening the walls in a very orderly fashion that was quite threw up a chain link fence which the garden to the community. “The little local different from the usually more chaotic, badly lit was supposed to keep people out Puerto Rican kids played in the sculpture garden No Se No exhibitions. Of course, there was lots for five or 10 years until the plot and spraypainted it,” says Coraggio. “Their parents of irony in his installation in making it look like could be auctioned off to the richest would come and hang out a bit and the artists in a real gallery show, but that in fact marked a new developer,” says Coraggio. Kelly and the surrounding blocks would get involved showing beginning of the No Se No gallery.” his cohorts had other ideas. “We art or just coming around to talk or drink beer.” The name for the new art space was suggested tore down the fence to an adjoining Kantor calls the Sculpture Garden “a surplus Artist Jack Waters performing at the ABC No Rio social centre, 1983 Photograph Toyo Tsuchiya by Coraggio. “All the future exhibitions planned vacant lot,” says Kelly. “Ken Hiratsuka monument built from thrown away urban excess”. by No Se No will be called the Rivington School,” brought in a huge stone from an He acknowledges that they weren’t the first artists announced a 1985 press release written by exhibition with the parks department, who had recycled objects, but their whole aesthetic Scrap metal noise performance by Demo-Moe at the Sculpture Garden, 1986 Photograph Toyo Tsuchiya Tsuchiya. “The aim of this gallery is to grasp Robert Parker and I brought in a was new. “The Rivington School artists were the next step. That is the sound and form of our checker cab that he had cut up, Linus scavengers, feeding on all the crap they could feeling.” The press release then named some of the brought down his welder.” A few collect in the city. This kind of junk art existed artists who would exhibit in the space, including years earlier Coraggio had been before of course, but the way the Rivington School Tsuchiya, Coraggio, Ray Kelly and Ken Hiratsuka. inspired by a visit to Los Angeles. was doing it was different. They didn’t create Others to exhibit there included the then unknown “I’d seen the ‘Watts Towers’ in the nice, good looking, cute museum objects, there Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. black ghetto in the ’70s,” he tells me. were tons of other craft artists doing that. The The name Rivington School was partly derived “These were gorgeous kooky mosaics school created a social event where the whole from the fact that it was a place where artists could on steel frame towers that a nutty neighbourhood participated in the construction teach their craft. It was also meant as a way for Italian guy [Simon Rodia] built over of the sculpture, and that was the greatest art in it.” the collective to make their mark on the downtown his lifetime then abandoned. I always The many painters who contributed to the scene. “Without a definite, self-imposed name wanted to make something like that.” Sculpture Garden were just as impressive and for the group’s random, morphing mayhem, the The Sculpture Garden really took innovative as the sculptors. “FA-Q and U-Suck 1980s media and art world would have an easy shape when a few Rivington School and Rick Prol could be counted on for works of time marginalising Rivington School from near artists including Kelly and Coraggio immense talent,” writes Angela Idealism. “Brilliant insignificance to total non-existence,” writes went hunting around the local area colours, odd angular perspectives, and strange Coraggio. To promote the work of the school, Kelly for scrap metal. “That part of town textures, were characteristic of the primitive, nominated Kantor as its spokesman. “I guess he was still fairly industrial so stuff could figurative abstract, symbols of this collective saw in me what was missing from other Rivington be found everywhere,” says Coraggio. conscience. These images were splashed onto soldiers, the social skills and other communication “Rebar [reinforcing steel] and other found objects; refrigerator doors, window frames, qualities that didn’t alienate people but rather metal could be found piled up by dolls, plastic toys. Junk was their canvas.” Carter convinced them to join the party,” says Kantor. construction sites, which were usually compares the school’s artists with others making “I was singing my propaganda songs backed with unguarded at night. So that’s when their mark in New York. “They followed the South a ghetto blaster, giving speeches, doing blood our group scavenger hunt took place.” Bronx graffiti writers by tagging and desecrating performances, spreading the idea of revolution in With an arc welding machine he had each others’ work, most of which was created on the streets, putting up posters, spreading the gospel stolen – hooked up to 100 feet of or out of found junk,” he says. at private parties, in galleries, clubs and through welding cable, a breaker box and three As Kantor recalls, the artistic statements were the media. I was also documenting the school’s jumper-cable clamps – he began to often as spontaneous as they were inspired. “One activities on film and video.” create the metal part of the sculpture. of the most surprising moments was when Toyo The symbol of the Rivington School was the six With the fence torn down so the work Tsuchiya painted the garden white,” he says. “The o’clock sign, the supposed closing time at No Se No. was open to the public, the sculpture junk sculpture that was made from bits of scrap

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suddenly became almost a clinically Miyamoto is now also one of the clean and conventionally beautiful great minimal artists in New York. fairytale site. It was almost I painted my whole body silver and wore a Editor of the arts journal Redtape disturbingly unreal. But it didn’t until 1992, Carter has authored two last for a long time and with the help diaper while screaming at the audience. I books on poetry and contributed to of the weather and new additions it many others. And these days Kantor soon regained its hardcore quality.” never knew what I would do next. is best known for his guerrilla blood Inspired by the Rivington School, performances at such venues as Coraggio set up another sculpture New York’s . garden on and 2nd Street free to do anything. I would act my pieces with Under the name Monty Cantsin, he in the summer of 1986. “I called it props and I loved that there would always be these has also put out several albums, the Gas Station aka Space 2B ‘Son objects lying around. It would be very outrageous, among them Ahora Neoismus, and of Rivington’, because it looked so I never knew what I would do next.” produced Demo-Moe’s only LP, similar,” he says. “In this case a wild, She would also play gigs with her band Womb Demolish NYC. He is also a regular towering scrap metal fence with cars, Service there alongside groups such as Demo-Moe. collaborator with Angela Idealism, motorcycles, giant floor safes and Despite some of the macho personas in the group, whose latest song ‘Millionaires’ boats welded into it. Later towers and Angela soon felt at home in this alternative Lament’ is about how “in New York arches filled the inside space. It also community. “I was very young and this was the first the billionaires are now pushing out had a three-bay garage where art time in my life I really felt part of something,” she the millionaires”. shows, music, poetry and plays would says. “They all loved how wild and expressive I was Despite the extreme regeneration take place.” and how much of a tough guy I was.” of the Lower East Side, the spirit of The Rivington School Sculpture In the mid-’80s the free market growth that had the Rivington School remains in the Garden reached out further into been part of Reagan’s neoliberal dream was already few defiant underground galleries the community when it also became putting increasing pressure on the alternative that remain – such as Bullet Space, an alternative art space for wild, scene. “Undercover real estate agents and hedge set up in 1986 as a squat by a group avant-garde performance, even more fund managers marched through the ruined of Rivington members. Similarly the out there than shows at No Se No. landscape of the Lower East Side, rubbing their ABC No Rio continues to run art “I think Demo-Moe’s shows were bloody hands while distributing eviction notices,” events in the neighbourhood. But probably the most memorable, if only says Cantor. As rents spiralled and real estate the legacy of Rivington School is because it wasn’t just a band, but tons speculators moved in, the Rivington School more far-reaching. “It spawned a of steel and debris anyone could beat responded. ‘Stop the War on the Poor, Istvan Kantor, aka Monty Cantsin, reading his DIY aesthetic that influenced or on,” says Carter. “They supposedly Gentrification is Genocide’ and ‘Hands off the manifesto in front of his artwork Blood-X, Museum inspired many of the artists and had songs but it was all about the Homeless’ read two banners at a demonstration of Modern Art, New York, 1988 Photograph people who interacted with it or noise and din they could create. by members of the group. Gabor Szitanyi saw it going on,” says Coraggio. And those were raucous affairs, with The Rivington School was eventually forced to “Then there were the thousands anyone able to join in; I certainly did. move out of the first Sculpture Garden on a cold they couldn’t figure out how to start their job more who just walked or drove by My fledgling band, the Vacuum Bag, November night in 1987, shortly after No Se No because the Sculpture Garden was welded together and have some image lodged in their played there and there wasn’t a lot had closed its doors for the last time. “When the so strongly that it took them some great efforts to memory of seeing a crazy mountain of junk there yet, but a lot of fires.” first garden was going to be demolished, we finish their assignment.” of steel that made no sense in a city One of those to regularly perform planned some resistance by chaining me to the A new sculpture garden soon emerged in of only buildings.” was Angela Idealism. “Trash from fence of the garden,” says Kantor. “But this action another vacant lot down the block on Forsyth With the collective’s sculptures logic, and logic from trash. We ride seemed futile and was dropped when the workers Street. “The second one had an amazing fence, torn down and artists forced out, the wave and don’t come back,” was arrived with their bulldozer. Our revenge was when a true masterpiece of welded street art,” says Rivington School: 80s New York one of the lines she screamed during Kantor. In 1992, this was also torn down, but Underground is an important her performances. “It was just such would rise again two years later on 6th Street document of a time when creativity 13th Street squatters oppose eviction by the NYPD, 1995 Photograph Clayton Patterson a raw, wild and expressive scene back between Avenue B and , a few blocks not money was the gauge of success. then and there was so much going from Coraggio’s Gas Station/Space 2B. Three “The monuments that could have on,” she tells me. “All you would have years later, this final sculpture garden also closed been our legacy were destroyed three to do was just walk down the street down as the Lower East Side’s rapid regeneration times,” says Kantor. “Therefore there Community protest, 10th and you would run into Monty [Istvan reached a new intensity. is not much material legacy of the Street at Avenue B, New Kantor] or Ray Kelly. They’d say, Like their counterparts from the Creative school except for the remaining York, 1990 Photograph ‘Come down, at eight we are going to Salvage movement in the UK (home to designers documentation and related ideas. Clayton Patterson start breaking up a ton of glass and Tom Dixon and Ron Arad), many of the recycling Our legacy in this situation could bringing a load of spray paint and mavericks went on to become renowned artists in perhaps be the Rivington School tools down too and creating a new their field. Best known for a strand of street art T-shirt slogan, with an addendum sculpture and making some noise.’ called 3D Graffiti, Coraggio is still creating to “Make Shit Happen Again!” There was never any structure to it, abstract welded art from his studio in New York. which I loved. Similarly, Kelly’s metal sculptures have appeared The book Rivington School: 80s “I really liked performing there in landscapes and galleries across the world – New York Underground is out now because it was so underground from PS1 in New York to Nagoya University of blackdogonline.com and experimental. For my first Arts in Japan. From inner-city sidewalks to the performance I painted my whole desert and coastline, Hiratsuka’s stone sculptures An exhibition on the Rivington body silver and wore a diaper while Ken Hiratsuka with his artwork Seed of Culture, have made him one of the best known street School is at the Bishop Gallery, screaming at the audience. If I wanted Central Park, 1985 Photograph Jim Louis artists working today. Owner of Gallery New York, in summer 2017 to sing or speak or swear or spit I felt Onetwentyeight on Rivington Street, Kazuko bishoponbedford.com

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