another Swampy opening

Swampspace Gallery

presents

ADOLFO RENE SANCHEZ
(1957-1990)
an incomplete archive

In Loving Memory of My Dear Brother Who Died of Aids Twenty Years Ago.


Opens May 8th 6-12pm

NYC circa 1984

Before computers, man-made killer viruses and all the "progress" that has transpired, there were happy days when the biggest worry two young Cuban brothers from Miami had was how to pay the $350. rent on a giant four room apartment in the Upper West Side.
Guess what, we paid the rent by selling art. We lived like princes with dirty faces.




Drawing Comes Easy

What is it that drives people to make art?
If it is Beauty, Humor and Social Relevance then they are on the right track to a thorny fulfillment.
Art is the most powerful force on Earth.



Love Made Him Do It

Painting is probably the most challenging of approaches to artistic expression.
There is nothing more intimidating than a blank canvas staring back at you asking to be transformed for some greater good. To tap ones stream of consciousness is to connect with the power and illusion of the spirit world. Adolfo was driven by the passion of an indescribably hungry spirit he possessed. He nourished it like the champion of creativity the that he was.




W.H.O. Knows.

But something (not) funny happened on the way to the forum and all hell broke loose. Where did the Human Immunodeficiency Virus come from? Where did it go? How many more will die from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome?
The World Health Organization may have some answers but who cares.




Self Portrait 1984

Most people live a long incidental life. They seldom take chances. Few will challenge the ancient rituals of creative experssion. They will not go there for their minds fear the awakening of the self to a state of being. Our minds want to be in charge of our every waking moment so that we focus on the past and the future. But it is the being that most honestly understands and reflects what life is about, it's about the Now.

In other words, Less Thinking More Feeling.
This is what Adolfo was about.

Inscription For A Gravestone


I am not dead, I have only become inhuman:
That is to say,
Undressed myself of laughable prides and infirmities,
But not as a man
Undresses to creep into bed, but like an athlete
Stripping for the race.
The delicate ravel of nerves that made me a measurer
Of certain fictions
Called good and evil; that made me contract with pain
And expand with pleasure;
Fussily adjusted like a little electroscope:
That's gone, it is true;
(I never miss it; if the universe does,
How easily replaced!)
But all the rest is heightened, widened, set free.
I admired the beauty
While I was human, now I am part of the beauty.
I wander in the air,
Being mostly gas and water, and flow in the ocean;
Touch you and Asia
At the same moment; have a hand in the sunrises
And the glow of this grass.
I left the light precipitate of ashes to earth
For a love-token.

Robinson Jeffers

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80's Veterans

Not Your Average Tea Party
Long-time pal Robert Carrithers has tons of old photos from the East Village NYC.




Basquait Before the Blitzkrieg.
Notice SAMO is at the copy shop, color xeroxes were the new thing.




Basking in the Barn.
Ann Magnuson performing her Country Western Spoof Night at Club 57.




Wild in the City
Wendy Wild doing here Alice in Wonderland mushroom queen at an undisclosed basement.




Mystery of the Scene Makers
Joey Arias chanteuse for all time channeling who know who?

All this nostalgia has little to do with the swamp but suffice to say, I hope young people today are having as good a time as we east village 80's art veterans had back then. Somehow i doubt it.

Anyways, tons of great old and some new photos from Bob Carrithers if you feel the 80's.

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John Sex n Wendy Wild

Enter at Your Own Risk, Tompkin Square Park 1980.

When I feel blue, you know what i do? I go back, way back to the time of the troglodytes, to the East Village in NYC, the downtown art scene of the 80's. It was the Loesaida that Clayton Patterson and others encapsulated with raw anthropological truth. It was heaven and hell rolled up in one forgotten neighborhood. It was where a kid from the mid-west to go and shed their her middle-class inhibitions.



Angels with Dirty Faces.

That is where i fell in love with people with names like John Sex, Katty K, Jeanne Caffeine, Van Chrome Wendy Wild, Snooky Tate and a host of other pseudo-names that singlehandedly formed the art and music scene that is today looked upon as a gestative magic and recognized by the elite as a unique phenomena of creativity.



Original to the Bone.

Wendy was Wild in every way. The mane says it all. Rest in peace dear free spirit child of passion and fun.





Wendy in Wonderland

The young and the restless could rent a hole in the wall for 150 bucks a month. There were venues like club 57, CBGB's, Irving plaza, the Ritz, Danceteria, Pyramid, Mudd Club, Area and other joints where crowds of youth would gather to do what young people do so well. You know what I'm talking about.




Smile Your on Crazy Camera.

Tseng Kwong Chi photographed self and friends.



How High Can You Go...

John was a quiet kid by day, a cobra-wilding wild thing by night. Rest in peace my dear golden mohawk angel.




Day Glow and Night Flow.

Kenny Scharf in Brunswik today.

My only wish is that today there may be a place like the East Village of the 80's for young creative people from across the nation to converge and live life to the max, but where is it?


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