PROJECT ROOM: Steven Aiken: Artists in Residence: Downtown New York in the 1970s / An exhibition of photographs from the new hardcover book of photographs by Stephen Aiken from Letter16 Press
MAIN GALLERY: Gallery Artists
Stephen Aiken, Patti Smith, St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, 1974, Archival Pigment Print ed. 1030 x 22 in
Artists in Residence: Downtown New York in the 1970s PHOTOGRAPHS / JUNE 2 – 26, 2023
RECEPTION: Friday June 2, 2023 6-8PM
Although best known for his abstract paintings, Stephen Aiken has also been quietly working over the years as a photographer. Artists in Residence features Aiken's photos of the bohemian milieu which drew him to New York from his native Boston in 1973.
A desire to understand that period's artistic ferment, as much as to document it, led Aiken to immerse himself in the then-nascent SoHo art scene. He shot intimate portraits of the emergent artists around him, as well as of the equally unpolished streets that connected their semi-legal lofts to the galleries and nightclubs where they gathered.
“When I think back on it, almost the entire culture revolved around the Vietnam War,” Aiken explained. By the fall of 1973 the Vietnam War was winding down, as was the existential dread that had hung palpably over so many of those who were of draftable age. “I think what made the culture spark at that time was a sense of relief.” That newfound energy is writ large throughout these images.
The exhibition consists of over a dozen photographs and celebrates the new hardcover book of photographs with the same name by Stephen Aiken from Letter16 Press
Stephen Aiken does more than simply add color to the established record of New York's good old bad days. Though he does quite literally do that: his 35mm photos collected in Artists in Residence are some of the few of the '70s downtown milieu not in black & white, turning even familiar terrain into revelatory new vistas. Just as significantly, his previously unpublished images from the period help enrich and complicate the accepted notion of a city teetering on the verge of collapse. What emerges is what was taking place inside many of those seemingly bombed-out tenements–namely, a cultural explosion.
Aiken's photos of this downtown scene include intimate portraits of the poets William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, John Giorno, and an on-the-cusp of stardom Patti Smith; the artist Joseph Beuys during his first visit to America, holding court with fellow artist Hannah Wilke before a raucous audience at the New School; and the musicians John Cale, Leonard Cohen, and Bob Dylan. These shots of hipster royalty are paired with Aiken's no-less-revealing street photography capturing the city in all its then-gritty glory. The book includes a foreword by Walter Robinson, co-founder of the seminal '70s art journal Art-Rite, and an introduction by Brett Sokol, a contributing writer on the arts for the New York Times.
Boston-native Aiken now lives in Cape Cod's Wellfleet. An exhibition of his 1970s Artists in Residence photos will be held at Provincetown's Schoolhouse Gallery from June 2-26
Release date: July 17, 2023
96 page hardcover, 10.25" H x 11.25" W $44.95 ISBN # 978-1953995032
www.letter16press.com
1447 SW 15th St., Miami, Florida 33145 Letter16 Press is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization