The Grain of His Skin
An archive on the artist Tony Greene (1955 - 1990).
Commentary by Richard Hawkins unless noted otherwise.
Contact: richardhawkins01@gmail.com
Context/Contemporaries: Carter Potter. “Basic Plumbing”, 1986 - installation, 2 x 8 x 8’. Installed in “Against Nature: A Show by Homosexual Men”, 1988. Curated by Dennis Cooper and Richard Hawkins, LACE - Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions.
Created specifically for the exhibition, Potter stepped out of his well-known film-leader paintings and closet+couch installations to memorialize the closing of the Fairfax Avenue sexclub “Basic Plumbing” as he remembered it in its 70s/80s heydey. Elements included (but not listed in materials) are a plexi-gloryhole, a small shelf to hold your bottle of poppers and a soundtrack of, among other 80s/90s darkwave standbys - so common in the sexclub scene, songs by Siouxie and the Banshees and Echo and the Bunnymen.
“Basic Plumbing” did actually open again though with a more spacious and open-plan design on Hyperion Avenue but was closed by order of the LA Zoning Board in 1997.
I’ve contacted Carter for other details. Will update if I hear back.
And this: http://cruiseorbecruised.tumblr.com/post/3530955697/basic-plumbing-los-angeles
Image courtesy of LACE - Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions.
Thanks to David Evans Frantz of the ONE Archives, Los Angeles.
(edited: 05/15/2014)