IN SHORT: AN ILLUSTRATED INDEX
View from the top floor
Marc H Miller
I came to New York from California in 1968 to study art history at the Institute of Fine Arts, a New York University graduate school grandly housed in the Duke Mansion on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 78th Street. I did eventually get my doctorate but from the beginning I was also tempted to pursue my own art and be part of the bohemian life of Downtown New York. What follows is my story -- in vintage pictures -- of the people, places, music and art that I experienced during the twenty years I lived at 98 Bowery.
I. 98 Bowery, 1969 - 89
I was living with my California friend, Carla Dee Ellis, in a small apartment on Thompson Street. When we heard that an 1800 square-foot top floor loft was available in an old flop house at 98 Bowery we eagerly grabbed the lease. The loft was raw, but the rent was only $175 a month.
Back in 1969 the Bowery was New York’s skid row dominated by bars and drunks sleeping on the streets. Harry’s Bar was on the ground floor at 98 Bowery so we often had to push away inebriated men to enter the building. Less visible were the artists and bohemians living in the area’s upper floors in spaces that once housed factories and warehouses.
A day in the life of Bowery Bar owner Harry Mason, 1974. A portrait in words and pictures.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, hundreds of young artists and would be bohemians passed though our loft at 98 Bowery.
Living at 98 Bowery from 1969 to 1973, Carla Dee Ellis (aka Carla Popcorn) created Pop Art paintings inspired by Andy Warhol’s style, subject matter and factory techniques.
In late 1960s Mike Shannon and poet Billy Collins shared a love of Lord Buckley, Charles Bukowski, and the Rolling Stones. Billy encouraged Mike to write and publish poems.
Mike Malloy's controversial exhibition at OK Harris Gallery in Soho in 1972 confronted gallery goers with the decision to either kill or free an ant.
II. Conceptual Art, 1969 - 78
I began as a painter, but soon converted to conceptual art, an art form that emphasized an “idea” and often incorporated photographs, words and performance. One of the best things about living on Bowery was that it was only a short walk to Soho, the new gallery district. In 1977 I began to hang out at the Fine Arts Building in Tribeca just south of Soho. Here my work was included in exhibitions that launched a new type of conceptual art concerned with politics, gender and other real-life issues.
My brand of conceptual art was interactive and involved getting people to write and draw. Over time my work became more collaborative and I formed partnerships with others like the Dutch photographer and art therapist Bettie Ringma, with whom I worked for close to eight years.
The "Lives" exhibition organized by Jeffrey Deitch opened in November 1975 at the Fine Arts Building in New York. It marked the start of a brief period when the building was the center of an energetic art scene that helped rejuvenate the deserted neighborhood just south of Soho--the now fashionable Tribeca.
The introductory catalogue essay by Jeffrey Deitch for "Lives," a 1975 exhibition at the Fine Arts Building in New York.
From the moment I was exposed to Mike Malloy's brand of conceptual art, focusing on human psychology and incorporating the actions of people, I knew my own creative direction. My art was interactive and used photography and text. It took less than six months from my first attempts at making conceptual art, to my first one-person show in fall 1973 at OK Harris Gallery in Soho.
Early Works Conceptual Art by Marc H. Miller. "Write a Word" (1972) and other blackboard pieces. Word response pieces: "Men by Women" (1972); "Women by Men" (1972); "Modern Art" (1972). "What’s Your Greatest Fear" (1972). "Choose a Flower or Gun" (1972) and other prop pieces. "T-shirt" (1972); "Nixon Mask" (1972); "Nose and Glasses" (1972); "Rubber Lips."
A sampling from an extended series of drawings of penises and vaginas done by men and women from 1973 - 1975. A video showing college students making penises and vaginas out of clay and talking about their creations, 1974. A conceptual art project by Marc H. Miller.
People are photographed and respond to the question: What are you doing?, Washington D.C., 1975. Conceptual Art by Marc H. Miller.
III. Punk Years, 1976 - 79
By the mid-1970s the center for new art moved east, towards the East Village and the Lower East Side. As 98 Bowery was just a few blocks from CBGB at 304 Bowery, starting in 1976 Bettie and I became regulars witnessing up close the rise of Punk as an international cultural phenomenon. Many of the people at CBGB were visual artists so when Alice Denney asked us in 1978 to organize an exhibition at the Washington Project for the Arts we drew from that pool of talent and called it “Punk Art.”
Increasingly Bettie and I saw our own art as part of that context. Our “Paparazzi Self-Portraits,” incorporated the imagery, aggression and populist economics of Punk. Soon our downstairs neighbor Curt Hoppe joined our enterprise adding his skill as a hyper-realist painter. Paul Tschinkel video-taped many of our performances.
The world’s first Punk Art exhibition at the Washington Project for the Arts, Washington DC, 1978, featured Punk Magazine, Alan Suicide, Miller Ringma & Hoppe, Marcia Resnick, Steven Kramer, Ruth Marten, Neke Carson, and others.
"Punk Art Exhibit" (1978); the catalogue of an exhibition curated by Marc H. Miller, Bettie Ringma and Alice Denney for the Washington Project for the Arts, Washington DC. This online version of the out-of-print catalogue includes excerpts from original interviews; new introductions; additional images; and select videos.
Paparazzi Self-Portraits by Miller & Ringma, 1975 - 1979. Two photographers step into the historical moment by taking pictures of themselves with celebrities and others of interest.
Photographs taken at CGBG from 1976-1979 showing Bettie with rock groups and personalities including the Ramones, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Nancy Spungeon, and Richard Hell.
The Story of the painting Bettie & The Ramones autographed by the Ramones at CBGB, April 1978.
Senator George McGovern signs an unusual portrait painting in his office in Washington DC, October 13, 1978. Part of the Paparazzi Self-Portrait series by Miller Ringma & Hoppe.
Screw magazine publisher Al Goldstein signs an unusual portrait painting in a live public performance at the Robert Fridus Gallery in Soho, January 12, 1979.
Photographs and video capture the outspoken Congresswoman Bella Abzug in 1979 critiquing a portrait painting of her that is part of the Paparazzi Self-Portrait series by Miller Ringma & Hoppe.
IV. Idyll in Holland, 1979 - 81
After living five years in the United States Bettie was eager to return to her native country and I was more than happy to join her in Amsterdam to live on a houseboat ideally situated on the Prinsengracht right opposite the Anne Frank House.
Karen Kvernenes who ran the gallery and bookstore Art Something asked us to mount a small version of “Punk Art.” For money, Bettie and I sold instant Polaroid portraits in the city's bars and clubs. When Polaroid Corporation gave us free film to take second shots, Karen helped us organize the exhibition “Amsterdam Privé.” A large spread of our bar photos in the popular weekly magazine Nieuwe Revu was the first of many articles they commissioned that allowed us to transform our art ventures into the format of popular journalism.
From 1979-1981 artists Bettie Ringma and Marc Miller lived on a houseboat on the Prinsengracht opposite the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The 1979 “American Punk Art” exhibition at Art Something in Amsterdam received full coverage in the newspaper Parool but was roundly criticized in the Museum Journaal, Artzien, and by the Dutch punks at Gallerie Anus.
From 1979-1980, Marc H. Miller and Bettie Ringma worked as street photographers selling instant Polaroid portraits in the bars and clubs of Amsterdam. Free film from Polaroid Corporation allowed for second shots and the development of the exhibition Amsterdam Privé.
… Since many of the people frequenting the bars of Amsterdam were Nieuwe Revu readers, the article made us instant celebrities. From that point on, when we made our photographic rounds strangers greeted us by name and often followed us from bar to bar. Our business increased dramatically.
V. BACK ON BOWERY, 1981 - 85
When Bettie and I returned to New York in summer 1980, we discovered that much had changed in the year we had been away. The East Village was now filled with art galleries and new clubs that were as much about art as music. Many of the people whom we knew from CBGB and the Punk Art exhibition were active in the evolving scene.
In 1982 Bettie and I mounted the exhibition “Unforgettable Moments Drawn by Real life People” at ABC No Rio, a raw alternative space founded by members of the artist group COLAB. These were busy years for me: I wrote a monthly column, "Miller's Memorabilia" for the East Village Eye; worked with Paul Tschinkel on ART/new york, a video magazine about art; and co-edited with Alan W. Moore the book ABC No Rio; The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery (1985).
Vietnam veterans draw their war experiences. Feelings connected with killing, watching friends die, off-base diversions and returning home after the war are revealed in these "projective drawings" collected by Bettie Ringma and Marc H. Miller in 1981.
Telephone Answering Machine Messages, 1982 – 1987. Individually each message is a record of a specific person and moment. Together they form something more -- a sound portrait of my life in the 1980's composed of the voices of the people who were in it.
Marc H. Miller's East Village Eye column spotlighted with images and humor the excesses of the East Village art scene. Who's the fastest artist... Keith Haring, Sri Chimoy or Morris Katz? On view in New York: the Prinzhorn Collection of certifiably crazy artists. Get your picture with the world's most expensive painting at Sotheby's Auction House.
ART/new york, a Video Magazine on Art. The early history of an innovative video series that featured contemporary art exhibitions in New York and artist interviews. Account covers the years 1981-1985.
The online version of the 1985 book ABC No Rio Dinero: The Story of A Lower East Side Art Gallery, a much cited source about the New York art scene of the 1980s.
VI. Bowery to Queens Museum, 1985 - 89
The year 1985 took me in a new direction. After answering an ad in the New York Times, I was appointed curator at the Queens Museum. For most of my time at the museum, I still lived at 98 Bowery, driving my car the forty-five minutes out to Flushing Meadows Park, where the Queens Museum is located.
As curator, I worked with many downtown artists, but I also organized events and exhibitions connected to the museum’s principal attraction the Panorama of New York City, a giant model of the city; and to the 1989 anniversaries of the two New York World’s Fairs which took place in 1939 and 1964 at Flushing Meadow. In 1994 I curated an exhibition about the jazz musician Louis Armstrong who lived in Corona a mile from the museum. An unexpected epilogue to my Queens Museum and Bowery story came about in 2016 when I curated an exhibition about the Ramones who grew up in Forest Hills, a mile from the museum.
Curator Marc H. Miller remembers his years at the Queens Museum, New York from 1985 - 1990. An album of photographs shows exhibitions by Laurie Anderson, Keith Haring, George Rhoads, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Tom Wesselman.
The complete catalogue for the exhibition Television's Impact on Contemporary Art at the Queens Museum, New York, 1986. Television's influence of painting, photography, and other traditional, static mediums from Pop Art to East Village Art.
An exhibition by Sandra Fabara (Lady Pink) at the Queens Museum, New York, 1990. Text from the catalogue recounts her rise from subway graffiti artist to working on canvas and exhibiting in galleries and museums.
The 1994 exhibition "Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Legacy" told Armstrong's life story by combining documentary photographs, ephemera, and memorabilia with fine art that more broadly expressed the spirit of jazz and the importance of African-American culture.
The exhibition "Hey! Ho! Let's Go! Ramones and the Birth of Punk" marks the 40th anniversary of the Ramones' debut album, and takes place near their hometown of Forest Hills, Queens.
The website 98 Bowery recounts a time when everyone in the East Village seemed to be an artist, and has inspired a number of real-world exhibitions and events.