My book is a recollection of downtown life in New York City in the late 70s and early 1980s reflected on from here in LA: 2020. It is In Memoriam for my younger brother, Raoul Kevin, and for the young women and men who died from AIDS, from suicide, from heroin, from sex. Some of my photographic work in this book was included in the 2017 MoMA exhibition, Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978-1983, along with all my films from this period.The Lower Manhattan...
More DescriptionMy book is a recollection of downtown life in New York City in the late 70s and early 1980s reflected on from here in LA: 2020. It is In Memoriam for my younger brother, Raoul Kevin, and for the young women and men who died from AIDS, from suicide, from heroin, from sex. Some of my photographic work in this book was included in the 2017 MoMA exhibition, Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978-1983, along with all my films from this period.The Lower Manhattan Dormitory Effect is a description of the downtown art scene, which at that time comingled with a vibrant club scene where I was a famous door man, and sober, so I can remember what I saw. It is gay. It is dyslexic. It is a portrait of a time in photographs of a group of creative friends, most of whom did not survive the period. It is the portrait of a young man recovering from a childhood of sadistic abuse, a childhood and adolescence of drug and alcohol addiction, and from Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is intended to be irreverent. To be funny (hopefully). To be infused with Buddhist philosophy. To be beautiful. To be an exact depiction of Then from Now.