ALERT: PETER NOLAN SMITH Sunday, February 8, 4: 30 p.m. MoMA

ALERT: PETER NOLAN SMITH Thursday, February 8, 4: 30 p.m. MoMA CLUB 57 reads from his memory writing. : subjective, not objective ... and delicious indeed.., and Jim has a few words ot say about the MoMA Club 57 show itself

Not only was Peter Nolan Smith the sexiest dude at a Club 57 ... He also was/is a brilliant writer ... get there early .. limit very, (very)limited space, in the basement inside Club 57

MoMA says: "Performance. February 8. Vagabond writer and self-described "well-unknown legend" Peter Nolan Smith stages an intimate afternoon of readings from his 1970s diaries, fiction, and poetry. This interdisciplinary performance layers sound, image, and spoken word in an evocative journey to the low-rent, freeform days when ... :"

Peter's writing is not without controversy. Most of his docu-fiction is just that: a landscape of fact which he plows for his own creative stimulation. As someone myself who has been the subject of hostile confabulation masquerading as fact, I am very sensitive to some of the criticisms of his writing voiced by people who populate his memory. Both Susan Hannaford

and Patti Astor are beacons of personal experience that were, upon reflection, the cement of the brief life of both Club 57 and the Mudd Club. Left out of the MoMA show are the significance of Diego Cortez and Anya Philips to the construction of this illusion of art and fun.

I hold the two young MoMA curators responsible. They appear n some ways to have never stepped back and looked at what was fact and what was confabulation. I suggest that this is a matter of their own young age and experience. To be able to do an objective re-creation of a cultural scene of the cultural importance of the late 70's early 80's in NYC "downtown" is a challenge and demands rigorous, objective research.

Their failure resulted in the exclusion of people and spaces that were vital arteries of the creative sensibility they have chosen to explore. A person I respect as an artist and I consider a friend was made the litmus test of authenticity. Ann Magnuson,

certainly, as performer and director was a correct critical choice they made,. But as we have seen and heard, some people think her spotlight is a very personal follow spot. She is making an artist statement, not an archeologist or archivist point of view.

Hence the pushback from people like Patti and Susan.

For me, to individualize to the degree the show does, fails to center on the actual creative COMMUNITY at the center of this moment downtown. Magnuson created a memory map that is the essence of the show. Ann was absolutely one of the lynchpins of this social club for the children of middle-class suburbs

who came to ot NYC to learn and to play with all the privileges and identifies they brought with them.

Because Magnason sensibility became central, others have voiced feelings of being left out. Such is the role of an institution like MoMA and the significance of its litmus test of authenticity. Which is why these sideshows of individual contributions become for me the most important part of the show. The digital wall at the first-floor entrance to the downstairs space of rapidly changing images of people who were the core of Club 57 as well as the photo work of Trixie Rosen brings alive the actual life of this tiny space and the insular world that surrounded it and the people who created Club 57 And the importance of the sideshows presenting personal memory like we have seen and heard from

Marcus Leathrdale

And now Peter Nolan Smith. Smith's writings are memory pieces written many years later. His reflections resonate with the creation of a more significant sensibility that the Club 57 exhibits stretch for as it spills over to embrace a cultural moment and yes political one as something that is, in fact, was much more significant than one tiny club on St Mark's place. A place entirely different today from downtown Manhattan almost 40 years ago. Smith's memory landscapes personal storytelling that fuses fact with fiction.

I know from personal experience that when fiction becomes the base of fact about one's own life to others, it is quite frankly infuriating .. I can't tell you how angry I was when "Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980–1983" by Tim Lawrence was published. Lawrence an academic was never a part of the scene he wrote about. But his own nostalgia for DJ's and the dance floor and the sounds rooted in NYC DJ's he danced to in London in the '80's by happenstance got him a contract to write about a particular period in NYC nightlife. Although I gave him extensive access to what I knew had happened in the time period, he was researching because in many ways I was at ground zero. Lawrence chooses to reject some of what I told him, Rather he depended on in some cases, burned out participants that he fawned over. No matter what documentation I offered him his nostalgia swoon and his desire to be a part of what he was not, produced a sometimes fictitious non-fact based exploration of a time and place. Unlike Kathy Acker, Lawrence did not acknowledge his subjectivity. Like Peter Nolan Smith's mash-up of fact and subjective memory. What is fascinating to me about Smith literary work is he was a part of Club 57b scene he is writing about ..unlike Acker or Lawrence. He was there unlike a person who comes to the material as an outside.

But we who were there and in fact, like Patti and Susan, were essential instigators of the sensibility that MoMA has reframed as what was, have our own reactions.

I have said it before: this show conflates and credits a few individuals and misses the essential moment of truth (Community) except in the most superficial way.

Which is what is captured in the Hemmingway meets Joan Didion stained writing of Peter Nolan Smith. It is contributions like his that Magnuson insisted be a part of the show .... and yes we need to also hear even more from voices like Patti Astor and Sunan Hannaford.
click on the link below and get a taste of Peter Nolan Smith's memory writing.

http://www.mangozeen.com/2013/01/25/new-york/a-step-into-tomorrow-by-Peter-Nolan-smith.htm