Mark Kostabi and the East Village Scene 1983-1987

Rating:
Summary: East Village Revival
Review: This book is a striking contribution to the resurgence of interest in a brief but little documented and even less understood period of recent art history. There are over a hundred photographs, many with substantial captions, all taken by Jones who worked as a paparazzi for the East Village Eye during that wild era, with a breezy art critical text which makes for highly addictive reading.
The author effortlessly documents enfant terrible Mark Kostabi's rise up through the Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat dominated East Village ranks. During the 80s Jones also wrote art criticism for all the downtown papers and he tries his hardest to plumb the forces that made for the Lower Eastside's unexpected burst into art world prominence, and then after a few frenetic years, brought about the scene's equally rapid evaporation. It is a strength of the text that the graffiti movement emanating from the South Bronx, and specifically centered at its outpost at Fashion Moda, is well documented both in photographs and in analysis.
The downtown artists included are very much the first wave of the Lower Eastside, including the Colab group and the avant garde pioneers coming in from the earlier Tribeca, grant-oriented 70s scene. Jenny Holzer is mentioned many times, Jeff Koons is not mentioned once. The importance of the death of graffitist Michael Stewart in 1983 at the hands of the police is highlighted in both galvanizing the Lower Eastside painters and in, perhaps more importantly, exciting the media. Similarly the interviews elicit the authentic range of art world theoretical voices from Peter Frank's heavily semiotic laden jargon to the street talk of many of the brainy artists themselves.
Andy Warhol's surprising role both as a player and as a role model in the East Village game plan is made clear right from the start of the book. For a yearbook style text like this to come out, some 15-20 years after the fact is so surprising, especially given the relative institutional neglect that the East Village movement has received in the last decade. The quality and weight of the paper and the binding of this book is extraordinary.
This book was produced entirely in Italy where the best art books are often made, and it will probably outlast many of the Loisaida artworks pictured in it. No other similar books are in the offing by other authors so it fair to say that this book has a final word quality to it, and in this respect, its casual lack of gravitas and photo-orientation is fitting, because the East Village always had as its motto, "Let's Party!"