Marc H Miller with his website 98 Bowery, 1969-89: View From the Top Floor. Gallery 98 was originally this site’s online store before expanding and becoming independent.
Gallery 98 is now a stand-alone online entity offering a full range of art ephemera from the 1960s through the first years of the 21st Century. However, when the gallery first went online around twelve years ago it was simply a “store” designed to offer objects connected to the website 98 Bowery, 1969–89: View from the Top Floor by Marc H Miller.
In the 1970s and 80s, Miller was a conceptual artist, curator and writer closely connected to the downtown music and art scene. His autobiographical site 98 Bowery, named after the building he lived in for 20-years, provides a first person perspective of a dynamic era when the East Village and the Lower East Side gave rise to new cultural directions that had an impact around the world.
Online versions of three out-of-print publications provide a glimpse of the site’s contents. The catalogue for the exhibition Lives (1975) captures the moment when photographers and performance artists turned away from “art about art” to embrace “art about life.” The exhibition catalogue for Punk Art (1978), presents the period’s fusion of nightlife, music and art. ABC No Rio Dinero; The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery (1985) tracks the rise of a more socially aware art through the artists group COLAB (Collaborative Projects Inc.). 98 Bowery also features a section on Paul Tschinkel’s ART / new York: A Video Magazine on Art that documents the emergence of a new generation of star artists in the 1980s.
Although the collection of gallery cards, posters and other art ephemera offered on Gallery 98 now extends way beyond the downtown art scene, its origins as part of 98 Bowery are still evident in sections devoted to nightclub invites, graffiti art, the East Village Eye, and to affiliated COLAB spaces like ABC No Rio and Fashion Moda. The images below are selected to introduce Gallery 98 visitors to 98 Bowery and highlight some of the connections.
Conceptual Art, 1969 – 78
Marc H Miller at 98 Bowery with portrait of Harry Mason, owner of Harry’s Bar, 1974
Marc H Miller, from portrait of Harry Mason, owner of Harry’s Bar, 1974
Punk Art exhibition, Washington Project for the Arts, 1978
Punk Art, Washington Project for the Arts, 27-page catalogue, 1978; exhibition curated by Marc H Miller, Bettie Ringma & Alice Denney. Cover illustration “Smashed Mona” by Miller, Ringma, and Curt Hoppe.
27-page catalogue size: 11.5 x 24 inches
Available — Price on request
Bettie Ringma and Marc H Miller: Selling Polaroids in the Bars Of Amsterdam, 1980
Size: 9 x 11 inches
Signed copies available — $60
ABC No Rio Dinero: The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery, 1985
Alan W Moore and Marc H Miller, ABC No Rio Dinero: The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery, 220-page book, 1985. Cover art by Joseph Nechvatal.
Book size: 8.5 x 11 inches
Available — $60
ART/ new york: A Video Magazine on Art
Interview with Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1983
ART/new york, “Graffiti/Post-Graffiti,” with Lady Pink, Basquiat, Rammellzee, Keith Haring, folded card, 1984. Produced by Paul Tschinkel.
Folded card size: 7 x 11 inches
Sold
Hey! Ho! Let’s Go! Ramones And The Birth Of Punk, 2016
Front of exhibition brochure for Hey! Ho! Let’s Go! Ramones and the Birth of Punk, Queens Museum, 2016. Photo by Roberta Bayley.
John Holmstrom, The Ramones in New York City, centerfold for Queens Museum exhibition brochure, 2016
Brochure size: 6.5 x 6.5 inches (folded) 19.5 x 26 (unfolded)
Available (three copies) — $100 each
