Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Drag Queens, Skinheads, Artists and Some Girls: the Pyramid Club of the ...

ESSENTIAL:  Because of the recent wide spread media attention paid to Tim Lawrence's. LIFE AND DEATH ON NYC DANCEFLOOR 1980 to 1983 and MoMA positioning Club 57 as the essential petrie dish for 80's alternative culture and NYC outsider art.  This vivid and memory provoking documentary footage from visual artist MARJAN MOGHADDAM could not be more timely. While Lawrence elevates the Mudd Club and the Garage as the two most important club scenes in his book, I would like to suggest that despite the importance of the MUDD Club as a social scene and the petrie significance of  tiny Club 57 on St Mark's place. I would like to suggest that in fact the PYRAMID is more deserving of attention, Like the Garage and its community of dances floor lovers. the Pyramid because of the the diverse community of people who identified with its culture and community, The Pyramid was the
loadstone of cultural representation for outsider art in the period.  MOGHADDAM's video like the collective work of both MARJAN
MOGHADDAM and Nelson Sullivan and  especially Tom Rubnitz takes us into the inner world of the Pyramid and the people who populated it. Not only were
the performance ideas percolated at Club 57 realized at the Pyramid
including many from Ann Magnuson and Joey Arias. The dance floor ..not shown in this video .. was intensely hot... with DJ's like Dany
Johnson, Ivan Ivan and Sister Dimension
 keeping the beat pounding
as as very diverse sets of feet danced away the night from drag queens to hard core punks, In the 50's clubs like the Stork Club and El Morocco , in the 60's it was Max's Kansas City and Arthur . In the 70's Studio 54, Mudd Club and
Hurrah
all clubs build on a self-defined community identity. Here
Marjan captures the real essence of what Bobby Bradley with
the help of Brian Butterick and Sister Dimension created.
Before the scene was ravaged by AIDS and heroin addiction it was a
glorious or should I say fabulous mixing of the shared vision
community , And yes it was community .. when I was locked out of my
own club (danceteria 2) by the Mafia who had seduced by
business partner financially , it was Bobby Bradley who called me
first and said : “Jim if you ever want to present or do something
at the Pyramid , you can. You are family … and I did the Penguin
Nights
series there.




+{Oh my ,, .I seemed be able to
recognize and remember almost everyone in this video .. Thanks
MARJAN MOGHADDAM   







1 comment: