NOTE: This book has just been rereleased in a new exclusive edition. Copies are limited.
This book captures the insurgent, unconventional, pioneering art activities and history of the legendary Rivington School, a large gang of street artists, sculptors, welders, performers, noise bands, trouble makers and Neoists who took over abandoned lots and buildings in New York’s Lower East Side in the 80s and turned them into junk gardens, welding workshops and performance spaces. All the articles in this book were written by Rivington School artists themselves, among them Ray Kelly, Toyo Tsuchiya, Monty Cantsin, Michael Carter, James Love Cornwell IV aka Jim C, EF Higgins III, Victoria Alexander, Angel Eyedealism, Julius Klein, Krzysztof Zarebski, Phil Rostek, Robert Parker, Shalom Neuman, Ingrid Andresen Lindfors, Gloria McLlean, John Ittner, Maggie Reilly, Linus Coraggio, Clayton Patterson, Andrea Legge, Mark Brennan, Andre Laredo, Ken Hiratsuka, FA-Q aka Kevin Wendell, and assembled by Rivington School spokesman Monty Cantsin aka Istvan Kantor in collaboration with Toyo Tsuchiya, photographer.
Rivington School: New York 80s Underground – Ed. by Istvan Kantor – Book
“The Rivington School likes to see itself as a revolutionary group locked in a struggle with established values. They are quick to accuse the art world of money-worshipping materialism and scorn the finicky craftsmanship and glossy, seductive finish that they believe make an artwork commercial.”
— Nancy Grimes, New Art Examiner, 1989“It’s a haven for free thinkers with alternative ideas about life, who challenge the very fabric of insidious GOP fascism. All’s I can say is sex o’clock.”
— Tommy Tortellini, Downtown, 1987“From 1985 to 1987, the site was a gathering point for more then 200 artists who, beginning at six each evening, partied, performed and poeticized in the course of erecting a massive garden from junk… we are ultimately struck by the persistence of the spirit of anarchy as a core value of American art. Junk and kitsch deployed into urban totems abound.”
— Alice Thorson, The Washington Post, 1988