[REVIEW] Greater New York Survey at MoMA PS1

Text by Adriana Pauly

On Sunday MoMA PS1 finally opened the doors to its awaited exhibition Greater New York and let anxious New Yorkers roam through the galleries. The exhibition has been co-curated by Peter Eleey, Douglas Crimp, Thomas J. Laz, and Mia Locks and encompasses the works of 150 New York based artists. Stepping away from the traditional focus on youth the fourth iteration of MoMA PS1’s landmark exhibition aims to balance our desire for the new and nostalgia for the past.

With a significant percentage of works dating before the 2000s, such as Henry Flynt’s 1979 documentary series of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s SAMO tags or Jimmy De Sana’s 1970 and 1980 documentation of the East Village punk and sex scene, the exhibition seems to seek to return to a grittier New York. Overall, there is a focus on documentary within the older works, bringing a loss of interest in durational investigations to light in todays New York art scene. The only exception are the moving photographs of Deana Lawson, shot over a number of years by correction officials at a prison in upstate New York, documenting same family’s visits.

Another constant in the exhibition is a focus on collections such as Nancy Shavers presentation of found objects or the tabletop sculptural installation by Liene Bosquê. Made out of hundreds of souvenir architectural miniatures the artist recreates an urban grid made purely out of kitsch objects. A more literal manifestation of a collection can be seen in the installation by the husband-and-wife duo Marco Romeny and Alisa Grifo called KIOSK.

One entire gallery of the old school building is dedicated to figurative sculptures. Tony Matelli’s male and female nude people are juxtaposed with more amorphous and indigenous works by Jeffrey Gibson as well as free interpretations of figurative sculptures such as Hayley Silverman’s noodle bowls. The landscapes created within each bowl are filled with various little figures, they are oddly grotesque and fall in line with a prevalence of kitsch notable in other works.   

Overall, the exhibition successfully gives a vast overview of the evolution of New York’s contemporary art scene, yet it is disappointingly shallow at times and fails to create a true impact on its visitors. Most works are easily consumed and do not reflect the struggle and tension that is involved in becoming an artist in New York.

Greater New York will be on view until March 16, 2016 at MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City, NY. It will accompanied by a series of performances and video screenings. Photographs and text by Adriana Pauly. Click here to see more photos of the survey.  

Beautiful Vagabond: A Glimpse Into the Turbulent Life of the Late Edwige Belmore

Edwige Belmore, “the queen of punk” has died at the age of 58 in Miami. A great many things can be said of the nightlife maven, musician and model, and yet it seems that the complexity of her journey through life remains all too mysterious. What we do know is that she touched the lives of the twentieth century’s greatest cultural influencers, from Helmut Newton, to agnès b., to Andy Warhol, and many more. We also know that her life was a long, beautiful, rags-to-riches-and-back-to-rags-again tale of heartbreak and obscurity. Starting with her familial abandonment, to her discovery by the world of high fashion and art, and ending with her final chapter as resident artist and landscaper of the Vagabond Hotel in Miami—her LinkedIn account lists “landscaping hobo” and “palm tree studies” as her duties. Little is known about her sojourn in Japan or the years that she spent at a Hindu ashram in India, and few would want to sit through the documentary that recounts her years as tastemaker to the Starck Club in Dallas. However, these are the chapters that defined her as an icon whose flame burned white hot, then flickered indefatigably, only to be extinguished prematurely by a blood-borne illness while few aside from her inner circle were looking.

“Edwige Will Die, and Edwige Will Be Born”

Abandoned by her parents and raised in a Parisian convent, Belmore came into her formative years with an unwavering determination to forge her own path. In 1976, at nineteen years old, she saw the Sex Pistols perform live for the very first time. Mind blown and loins roused, she was changed completely, telling everyone that on November 6, 1979, “Edwige will die, and Edwige will be born.” Friends assumed she was planning her suicide, but what she had in mind was more like what later generations would call a re-brand. She burned all of her clothes, and bought one outfit that was definitively hers. “I had completely this amazon look: riding pants, high heels, white shirt with a skinny tie, with a big old beaten leather jacket that’s so cool, shaved head … I was some kind of alien, amazon, dominatrix or something.”

Edwige is dubbed the “Queen of Punk”

Photograph by Farida Khelfa

Springing into the Parisian punk circuit like an androgynous bat out of hell, Belmore was approached by two girls in a club who asked if she would play drums in their band. Having never played a musical instrument, she accepted, and their band, L.U.V. (for Ladies United Violently, or Lipsticks Used Viciously) was born. As the punk movement started to gain recognition in the media, she was asked to do interviews for Vogue, Elle, Nouvel Observateur and the like. Within no time she became the leader of a movement and was crowned the “Queen of Punk.”

A Foray into Modeling

Photograph by Philippe Morillon

Due to the perpetual stream of press, her notoriety grew rapidly and Edwige found herself unwittingly shepherded into the inner circles of haute couture. Catching the eye of Helmut Newton at a party chez Paloma Picasso, the louche photographer followed her incessantly throughout the night begging to take her picture. Without any experience or ambition for modeling, the gender-bending ingénue made history posing for everyone from Helmut Newton, to Pierre et Gilles, Maripol, Andy Warhol, et al.

Cover of Façade Magazine with Andy Warhol

Photograph by Alain Benoist

As a symbol of counterculture, establishment-fucking fracas, as well as muse to the fulcrums of the art and fashion worlds, Belmore was the perfect companion to Andy Warhol for the cover of Façade. It was an underground, paper magazine that sought intriguing binaries to juxtapose on their covers, and this one would go down in art publication history with the headline: Pope of Pop Meets the Queen of Punk.

Walking for Jean-Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler

Edwige never called herself a model, and didn’t want anybody else to, which is why asking her to walk had to be approached delicately. “Jean-Paul Gaultier came to me and said, ‘You look amazing. Do you want to be in my show?’ … he was like ‘do you want to be in my SHOW,’ which is whole different meaning.” Gaultier was curating looks from the street (a practice unheard of at the time), and putting street kids on the runway. Belmore drank champagne and got high throughout the entire presentation, yet she still managed to finish the show in a pair of towering stiletto heels singing Sid Vicious’s reprise of “My Way.”

A Hop Across the Pond to Studio 54

Edwige Belmore, Maripol & Bianca Jagger @ Studio 54, photograph by Duggie Fields

Having taken Paris by storm within the span of a single year, Warhol was anxious to introduce Belmore to the elite influencers of New York—or rather, he took it upon himself to introduce New York to the Queen of Punk. Approaching the illustrious nightclub, swaths of partiers parted like the Red Sea as she entered the club for her very first time, arm-in-arm with her regal, rebel counterpart. She was suddenly a member of the elite New York underground with contemporaries such as Bianca Jagger, Keith Haring, Debbie Harry, Kenny Scharf, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Ambiance creator to Le Palace in Paris

Upon her return to Paris, Belmore was approached by ‘The Prince of the Night,’ Fabrice Emaer, and asked if she would work the door at his new nightclub, Le Palace. It was the Studio 54 of Paris, and Edwige made the perfect doorman. She was a 20-year-old Amazonian punk with six bodyguards facing hoards of anxious scenesters. Belmore claimed that she would look them in the eyes and feel immediately whether or not they were right for that evening’s ambiance. She once refused the King of Sweden because “obviously, he must have been an asshole.” It was during this chapter that she married her friend Jean Louis Jorge, a Dominican filmmaker fifteen years her senior, because in the age of free love, getting married was the most punk thing to do. Her wedding dress was a mock Chanel gown made from white terrycloth towels stitched by a friend who worked for the heritage house.

Music and Film

Cover image by Pierre et Gilles

From 1978-1988 Edwige acted in seven short and feature-length films, the first of which was a role in Jean-Marie Perier's 1978 film, Sale Rêveur with Lea Massari and Jacques Dutronc. She also played herself in the 2011 feature film Des Jeunes Gens Mödernes or Kids of Today. In 1979, Claude Arto introduced Belmore to the exhilarating sounds of the synthesizer and they started their Parisian Cold Wave band (referred to as New Wave by the Anglophones), Mathémathiques Modernes. Throughout the ‘80s she traveled back and forth between Paris and New York singing and playing sax with her lesser-known band, Jungle Geisha.

‘Maitresse de Maison’ at agnès b., New York

Photograph by Pierre et Gilles

Edwige met agnès back in 1976 when at the opening of agnès b. in Paris. Years later, when agnès opened the very first gallery/boutique in New York City, she asked Belmore to be the lady of the house. It was her job to fuse the worlds of fine art and fashion so that the crowd would flow seamlessly from one side to the other without any sense of awkwardness or separation. agnès hung an enormous photograph of Edwige (taken by Pierre et Gilles) that she had bought years prior behind the cash register, and placed a much smaller photo of herself below it to the right. In the early ‘80s, Belmore met the mellifluous, Nigerian-born, British singer Sade and the two engaged in a passional tryst. It is rumored that her hit single “Sweetest Taboo” was inspired by the Queen of Punk.

Photograph by Maripol

Edwige Finds Photography

Photograph by Edwige Belmore

In the final years of her life, Edwige created a photographic series called The I Within Your Imagination, which she planned to present in a group show called 7 Deadly Sins. The location of the intended exhibition and whether or not it happened is unknown. The series comprised 500 photographs taken of the same mysterious object at various different angles with varying sources of light. The effect seems a perfect representation of who she was to the myriad worlds in which she interacted. Having absolutely no training as a model, actress, singer, musician, or any of her other assorted professions, she seamlessly assumed those roles without any hesitation or fear of failure—she simply did and was everything that was asked of her.

Edwige never did finish the coffee table book that she and Maripol had hoped to publish, which would encompass photographs from the 75 artists and photographers who called her their muse. There are undoubtedly countless stunning photographs held in private collections that the world has never seen and we can only hope that these lost treasures will surface in the coming years. text by Summer Bowie

Photograph by Ellinor Stigle