Marcia Resnick by Curt Hoppe, acrylic on canvas, 2012. Size: 96 x 70 inches. Collection: Howl Happening, New York City
Marcia Resnick boasted that she graduated second in her Brooklyn high-school class just behind future senator Chuck Schumer. Her trajectory, however, would be quite different. Resnick gravitated towards art, first establishing herself as a conceptual artist, and then achieving success as a portrait photographer documenting the darkest edges of punk.
After studying with conceptual artist John Baldessari at CalArts, Resnick returned to New York in 1973, at a time when photography was gaining wide acceptance in the art world. She was a “book artist” whose photos bridged ‘conceptual narrative art’ with what would later be known as “pictures generation art.” Her acclaimed 1978 book Re-visions recreated through humorously staged photos the memories of female adolescent anxieties.
By the mid-70s, Resnick’s attention turned to punk music and the club scene, as she moved from exhibiting her photographs in galleries to selling them to publications and music outlets. Her “Bad Boys” series – supposedly about men, but also about attitude and style — was instrumental in defining the look of punk. She had no qualms about using her femininity to control photo sessions that often took place in her loft late at night.
I spent great swaths of time schmoozing with brilliant, erratic, wildly talented men … Some diplomatic skills were required…sometimes (that) meant slipping into the persona of a Bad Girl. Nobody was twisting my arm. I sensed kindred spirits in the faces of the men I photographed. I believe they also recognized the enfant terrible in me.
Her participation in punk at its most extreme, upended her career in the 1990s, but over the last decade, she successfully reclaimed her place as one of the key artist-photographers of the 1970s and 80s. Her book Punks, Poets & Provocateurs (2015) established her as one of the best portrait artists of her generation; while her traveling retrospective Marcia Resnick: As It Is Or Could (2023), gave her work the full art history treatment by bringing together for the first time her conceptual and portrait work.
Re-visions, 1975 – 1978
I was talking about my life, my life as an adolescent, and the foibles and trials and tribulations of my life. I was 25 when I started working on it. I was considering all of those peculiar things that happened to me that I remembered as a young woman. – Marcia Resnick
Marcia Resnick, Re-visions, invitation to the publication party, Gotham Book Mart, Card, 1978 Size: 4 x 6 inches
“She inevitably ran her nylons immediately after putting them on”; (from Re-visions), 8-Postcard Collection, Fotofolio, 1980. Size: 6 x 4.25 inches each — Available
“She was horrified to learn that she had been walking around school all day with her skirt hiked up in the back”; (from Re-visions), 8-Postcard Collection, Fotofolio, 1980. Size: 6 x 4.25 inches each — Available
Marcia Resnick, She Secretly Lusted For Her Television Idols, Gelatin-Silver Photograph, 1978. Size: 11 x 14 inches.
Paul Tschinkel (producer and director), Marcia Resnick On Book Art, a short excerpt about Re-visions from a 24 minute program originally screened on Manhattan Cable TV, 1977. Full program available for streaming here.
Bad Boys, 1976 – 1982
I’m really a control freak…as soon as anyone enters into the lens of my camera, they’re coming into a relationship with me…I’m not just doing portraits, I’m doing Bad Boys…I find myself often throwing people against the wall and kicking them into place. – Marcia Resnick
Boys Keep Swinging, Photographs of Walter Lure, Kristian Hoffman, and Peter Zaremba by Marcia Resnick, Two-Page Article in The Soho Weekly News, August 23, 1979. Page size: 15 x 11 inches — Available
Some Girls, Photographs of Pat Place, Jane Fire, Adele Bertei, Anya Philips, and others by Marcia Resnick, Centerfold in New York Rocker Magazine, July-August 1978. Magazine Size: 17 x 11.5 inches — Available
The Last Word on Punk… We Hope, Cover Photo by Marcia Resnick connected to a 7-Page Article by Cynthia Heimel with 11 Photos by Resnick, New York Magazine, October 15 1979. Size: 11 x 8.5 inches — Available
Punks, Poets & Provocateurs (2015), Photographs by Marcia Resnick, with Text by Victor Bockris
Marcia Resnick, Victor from Bad Boys, Press Photograph with notations by Resnick, 1978. Size: 11 x 14 inches. — Available
Vicktor Bockris, Resnick’s collaborator on Punks, Poets, and Provocateurs, was a longtime friend from the 1970s who has written extensively about bohemian New York.
Punks, Poets & Provocateurs: New York City Bad Boys, 1977 – 1982, Photographs by Marcia Resnick, Written by Victor Bockris, 272-Page Book, Published by Insight Editions, 2015. Size: 7.5 x 10 inches.
Marcia Resnick and Johnny Thunders from the book Punks, Poets & Provocateur.
I had started to photograph Bad Boys, and Johnny was the quintessential bad boy for me. He was a drug addict and a really creative musician…He was like one of those people that couldn’t fit in when he was younger and then found a place… His reputation intrigued me, and he was so different from me. And I just like opposites. – Marcia Resnick
Marcia Resnick, Johnny Thunders with Syringe from the book Punks, Poets & Provocateur
See our full collection of Marcia Resnick ephemera
