Selected issues of the German Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) magazine from the 1990s are today coveted collector items because of the publication’s radical decision to give famous artists editorial control in the design of the magazine’s cover, as well as lengthy picture spreads featuring whatever images they chose.

Last week the art world was fixated on the death of Chuck Close, a pioneer photorealist painter who was also connected with conceptual and post-minimal art. As one of the most celebrated artists from the 1970’s, Close’s personal story also fueled media interest.

Art ephemera plays a particularly important role in promoting performance art. Not only are announcement cards and flyers a key factor in attracting audiences for these short duration events, they also live on after the performance, and are sometimes the only surviving record of what took place. Here is…

Neke Carson has always had his ardent advocates. A pioneer performance artist with roots in Fluxus, Conceptual Art and Pop, Carson has had an unusual and remarkably varied career.

In the 1970s and 80s the number of young artists hoping for careers in New York far exceeded the opportunities available through the city’s commercial galleries. This in no way deterred the truly committed who redirected much of their creativity to DIY outlets and events that catered primarily to friends and other artists. Gallery…

There are so many engaging items among the 5,000 examples of art ephemera posted on Gallery 98 that it is sometimes difficult to decide what to feature in our weekly newsletter. This assortment of favorites was chosen to appeal to a broad range of tastes and interests.

Best known now as the inspiration for the fictional bar Hi Hat in the television serial The Deuce, Tin Pan Alley (1978-88), located on West 49 Street in Times Square, was also an artist hangout and exhibition place. Founded by Maggie Smith in 1978 in a neighborhood where the sex industry flourished, the bar took…

If one wanted to encapsulate with a single work the spirit of the downtown art scene in the late 1970s, an appropriate choice might be Beth B & Scott B’s independent film The Offenders. A “savage satire” full of violence and nihilism, this low budget Super 8 film embodies the period’s…

In the 1970s and 80s Diego Cortez né James Curtis was a conspicuous downtown trendsetter. His stylish good looks, ability to forge relationships with top talents, and a confident air that at times bordered on snobbishness lent an important boost to selected artists and musicians exploring new creative directions during…

It is not surprising that a transient art form like graffiti has inspired so many books. Whether this new kind of art was created on the streets or in the subways, most of the key early examples that brought attention to the phenomenon in the 1970s and 80s…

The multi-talented BLADE was also a prolific photographer who documented his work in over 10,000 pictures. In the early 1970s when graffiti was not yet targeted by the police, the extroverted artist was not shy about posing in front of his trains and distributing photographs to friends like Glazer.

The recent death of artist Mary Beth Edelson in April calls attention not only to her importance as an artist, but also to the wide variety of groundbreaking achievements of the women’s art movement, and the many feminist artists who emerged in the 1970s. …

Business cards are a well-established and well-regarded category of paper collectible. Both the Smithsonian and the Victoria and Albert Museum holdings include many such cards. Like any other business, art-world enterprises use this mode of advertising often with some added artistic flair.

Mary-Ann Monforton arrived in New York in 1974 settling into the East Village when it was still in the depths of decay. It did not take long for her to become part of the lively downtown art world with its parties, clubs and openings. There were a variety of short-lived jobs before…

Gallery 98 is on Instagram.  Each day we post new images from our extensive inventory of announcement cards, posters, flyers, photographs and multiples connected to the downtown New York art world from the 1960’s through 2000.  Gallery 98 is a resource for both collectors and researchers.  Follow us on Instagram at …

Robert Colescott’s gaudily colored, densely packed, transgressive, cartoon-like paintings continue to garner surprising success. …

Stefan Eins’s storefront at 3 Mercer Street pointedly called itself a store, not a gallery.  Doubling as Eins’s illegal living quarters with a bed hidden behind a screen, the space (which operated from 1974 – 1979) epitomized the provocative DIY populism that made Downtown New York such a creative cauldron in the 1970s.

Jean-Michel Basquiat has a big presence on Gallery 98 in part because Marc H. Miller, the founder of the site, knew Basquiat, and conducted the very first interview with him in November 1982. …

As much inventor as artist, de Montebello developed a new type of camera that produced individual transparencies each consisting of 2,644 separate exposures. When such a transparency is seen through a “lens-viewing screen” (another invention of de Montebello’s), the multiple exposures merge into a single 3-D image that changes depending on…

In the 1960s and 1970s Ray Johnson was a familiar presence at art events handing out photocopy announcements with unusual designs, and collecting addresses for future mail-art networking. Artistically, Johnson can be classified as part of the Fluxus and Conceptual art movements, but his hard to decipher, sui generis messaging,…

Given the cautious nature of today’s art world it’s refreshing to remember a time when museum’s actually courted controversy. The Brooklyn Museum must have suspected there would be trouble when they brought Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection to New York in 1999.

Opening an art gallery in the 1980s was easy. Rents were low and there was no shortage of talented artists looking for places to show. In hindsight, it’s surprising to see how many now historic exhibitions were held in small, raw spaces run by neophyte dealers on a shoestring budget. The art world was ready for new things. All it…

One of the most conspicuous developments in downtown New York in the late 1970s was the decision by many young artists to start making low- budget, narrative films. This was part of a broader embrace of popular media, as many of these filmmakers were also active in rock bands.

The recent announcement that Metro Pictures art gallery will close at the end of 2021 stirs memories about how this once small gallery, founded in 1980 by Janelle Reiring and Helene Winer, got off to a roaring start with a quick succession of exhibitions featuring now famous artists whose work continues to command art-world respect. Countering…

Gallery 98 has a special connection to the artist group Collaborative Projects Inc. (COLAB).  Old announcement cards, flyers and early multiples by artists connected to the group make up a significant part of our inventory.

In the same celebratory spirit as Great Day in Harlem, the famous group portrait of jazz musicians, Tea Party at the Algonguin Hotel salutes women artists as a newly empowered creative force. This iconic image was created to promote Show of Strength, a benefit exhibition for MADRE, an organization working with women to address humanitarian needs around the…

Invitations, posters and other nightclub ephemera document the important role that clubs played in the creative spirit of Downtown NYC in the 1980s. The Mudd Club, Club 57, AREA, Danceteria, Palladium and other clubs were key venues for curators, performance artists, photographers, filmmakers and clothing designers. Gallery 98 spotlights some of these club stars…

Harlem was never an isolated neighborhood. For most of the 20th century it was the center of African-American life in the United States, a mecca that attracted Black people from all around the country and the world.

Collectors of art ephemera who focus on the career of a favorite artist highly prize cards and flyers that include a portrait of the artist.  Ephemera of this kind is surprisingly rare as most galleries and museums prefer to promote the works being exhibited rather than the artist. Gallery…

Edit DeAk was an art enthusiast who truly got involved. Art-Rite (1973-78), the low budget newsprint magazine that she founded and co-edited with Walter Robinson, was one entry into the art world.

This early work by West Coast performance artist Chris Burden pushed all the limits.  Burden is best known for SHOOT (1971) a performance in which he was shot in his left shoulder with a rifle from 15 feet away.

There are many reasons to collect art ephemera. This selection from the Gallery 98 inventory features prime items from the 1970s and 80s that skirt the lines traditionally separating art, entertainment, politics and everyday life, and offer a wide variety of choices. Andy Warhol, Happy Birthday Holly, 1986 Palladium, Andy Warhol, Happy…

As we move into this new year with everything in flux it is more important than ever to remember our past. Art ephemera can help keep what is behind us alive. How will people remember the artists and art events of the last century? These new additions to the Gallery 98 provide fodder for thought. Ray Johnson’s…

The art world of the 1970s, 80s and 90s is the focus of Gallery 98. These decades were noteworthy not only for art, but also for the vast amount of printed art ephemera that was a by-product of the display and marketing of the art. Each week we…

The art ephemera of Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960 – 1988) is of special interest driven not only by his phenomenal success but also by the way his work brings together different segments of the art world.  Cards show him exhibiting in nightclubs, pop-up spaces and in the toniest art galleries.

In the late 1970s young artists aspired to work outside the traditional art world. They wanted to be more in touch with life, reach new audiences, and achieve success with low-priced art that could appeal to a mass audience.

Gallery 98 is excited with the recent acquisition of two large boxes of announcement cards, posters and other art ephemera from the estate of art critic Edit DeAk (1948-2017).  As a co-founder of the influential DIY newsprint magazine ART-RITE, and as a writer for Artforum and other periodicals, DeAk was at the…

The best kinds of art ephemera not only evoke a specific art event but also capture broader cultural trends. The flyer above announcing an exhibition of hand-notated scores and a series of concerts by composer Steve Reich at a leading Soho gallery, is a reminder that the concept of “minimalism” influenced…

Curiosity, a sense of wonder, and the belief that anything can be art are the elements that helped make Stefan Eins into an innovative art figure in the 1970s.  Born and raised in Austria, Eins came to NYC in 1967, and settled into a small storefront in Soho in 1972 when it was still a deserted manufacturing district. …

It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then an art-world story makes the cover of a popular magazine. This tendency probably accelerated after the advent of Pop Art, an art movement that made the art world more accessible and attractive to the general public.

The 1981 exhibition Beyond Words held in the fourth-floor gallery of the then super-trendy Mudd Club stands out as a conspicuous point in the long road that brought subway art to art-world legitimacy. Curated by Fab 5 Fred Braithwaite and Keith Haring, the exhibition lives on today through this brightly colored, silk-screen poster by John Sex, and a small, offset announcement card…

Among the works featured in the exhibition Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip Hop Generation at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (October 18 – May 16) is the videotape “Graffiti / Post Graffiti,” a rarely seen program first screened on the Learning Channel in 1984.

Some art ephemera ages especially well. One example is this vintage 1980 poster for “Dubbed in Glamour” advertising three nights of performances at the Kitchen in Soho. …

Gallery 98 offers different ways to explore our large inventory of gallery invitation cards, posters and catalogs. One popular option is to search by artist. More than 180 are listed on our “Artists’ Page” including David Hammons, Jenny Holzer, Joan Mitchell, William Pope.L,…

In 2000, Ephemera Press began to commission artists to create illustrated maps of historic New York City neighborhoods that spotlight the homes and hangouts of the famous artists, writers and musicians.

An article about endurance artist Tehching Hsieh in T: The New York Times Style Magazine inspired Gallery 98 to feature the 1980s performance art pioneer as the subject of this week’s email.

Gallery 98 features art and art ephemera connected to artists active in downtown New York in the 1960s to 90s. This was a time when artists were exploring their own real-life experiences, often creating works incorporating self-portraits and depictions of friends.

Website visitors can now explore Gallery 98’s large collection of vintage art ephemera using newly added sections devoted to the major art movements.  Gallery 98 is designed as an online resource for both collectors and researchers, and we are constantly working to improve our finding aids. See items from…