As a veteran of the East Village art world from the 1970s onward, Gallery 98 founder Marc H Miller is also an original member of the board of advisors at Howl! Happening: An Arturo Vega Project. Founded by Jane Friedman (Patti Smith’s former manager) and dedicated to Arturo Vega (1947–2013), the art director of the Ramones, Howl! is named after Allen Ginsberg’s famous 1955 poem, and strives to keep alive the iconoclastic downtown spirit that was so influential during the last decades of the 20th century.
Now in its sixth year, Howl! has mounted dozens of exhibitions at its two downtown spaces: a gallery at 106 East 1st Street and a study center at 250 Bowery. The non-profit organization has also been quietly publishing an impressive collection of catalogues. All the catalogues below can be purchased through the Howl! website.
Arturo Vega is most famous for designing the iconic Ramones logo, but he was also a prolific painter. This catalogue features his little known “Insult Paintings” created from 1990–2012.
Curator Dan Cameron pays homage here to Jackie Curtis and Ethyl Eichelberger two “avant-garde playwrights operating at the outer regions of gender self-determination.”
In addition to videotaping many of the musicians who played at CBGB and other clubs, Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong were also the creators of the video lounge at the nightclub Danceteria. This catalogue resurrects a video installation that featured club-goers making sexually provocative come-ons for others to watch.
This catalogue by the multi-talented performance artist John Kelly features poignant excerpts from his diary at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, along with his memorial drawing of friends and colleagues who died.
Curt Hoppe’s Downtown Portraits is a personal tribute to the creative community that inspired him over the last half-century. The catalogue includes 105 portrait photos, and 24 of Hoppe’s larger-than-life, black- and-white paintings.
Filmmaker Sarah Driver was the main force behind this group exhibition that features artists who knew the young Basquiat and participated in the making of Driver’s documentary film Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
This important graffiti exhibition is up at Howl! through January 29, 2023. The catalogue assembled by Al Diaz, Eric Felisbret and Mariah Fox provides a detailed timeline of graffiti in New York City.
These catalogues can be purchased directly from Howl!
