NYU Arts & Science, Department of Social and Cultural Analysis
The Colloquium for Unpopular Culture presents:
An Artist Talk by Marc H Miller
WHEN: Saturday, February 21, 2:30pm
WHERE: Immersion Room, 7th Floor, NYU Bobst Library, 70 Washington Square South
Free and open to the public. Non-NYU guests must RSVP for Bobst Library entry: ss162@nyu.edu
In the early 1970s, artist Marc H. Miller was living on the top floor of an old Bowery flop house on whose ground floor was Harry’s Bar, catering mostly to bums and alcoholics. Over time, he found himself turning away from the cold aridity of much conceptual practice and becoming more interested in people – their thoughts, behavior, concealed lives. He began to recruit participants to whom he gave prompts – “What’s Your Greatest Fear?”, “Word Associations: Men, Women”, “What are you doing?”, and “How Much Money Are You Carrying?” Their responses required them to write short answers, draw pictures, take photographs. He in turn shot photo portraits of them.
Miller’s art is a time capsule of a lost New York, of the way people looked and thought and acted fifty years ago. Voyeurism is part of its enduring appeal – “Draw a Penis and Vagina”, a series that involved 100 participants of all ages; “Unforgettable Moments” (in collaboration with art therapist Bettie Ringma), a collection of over 30 drawings and tape-recorded stories by people who had experienced wars, robberies, life-threatening fires.
In this presentation Miller will reflect on how he and other artists both chafed against and revivified conceptualism in the 1970s. He will show examples of his sometimes-controversial work to which time – and digital media – have added new cadences, new layers of meaning.
MARC H. MILLER is an artist, curator, writer, publisher and archivist. He was a curator at the Queens Museum from 1985 to 1991, and has staged exhibitions on Louis Armstrong, the Ramones, and the 1964 New York World’s Fair. His publications include ABC No Rio: The Story of a Lower East Side Gallery (1985) and Selling Polaroids in the Bars of Amsterdam, 1980 (2023), a book of photographs he made with Bettie Ringma. He is the founding director of the art ephemera specialists Gallery 98. More information about his work can be found at 98bowery.com
THE COLLOQUIUM FOR UNPOPULAR CULTURE (est. 2007): falling and laughing…
Non-NYU guests must RSVP for Bobst Library entry: ss162@nyu.edu
