"Why, When & How"

Subject: Robert Rauschenberg 

A few months before I graduated from Cecilia High School in 1956 I was having very serious thoughts of what I wanted to do with my life.  Did I want to be a jazz musician, a classical musician and or a classical artist?  I was interested in art and music and would frequent the school library reading books on the subject.  Each week I would read articles about art in the Times Magazine’s publication.  I came upon an article about Robert Rauschenberg and the work mentioned was now exhibited in a museum.  The painting, titled Bed, cleared all of the questions of who and what I wanted to be, I was free of all restrictions. He simple painted his bed and exhibited it.

Bed is one of Rauschenberg’s first “combines” the artist’s term for his technique of attaching found object, such as tires or old furniture, to a traditional canvas support. In this work, he took a well-worn pillow, sheet, and quilt, scribbled on them with pencil, and splashed them with paint in a style similar to that of Abstract Expressionist  “drip” painter Jackson Pollack.   Legend has it that these are Rauschenberg’s own pillow and blanket, which he used when he could not afford to buy a new canvas. Hung on the wall like a traditional painting, his bed, still made, becomes a sort of intimate self-portrait consistent with Rauschenberg’s assertion that “painting relates to both art and life…[and] I try to act in that gap between the two.”                              

Soon after arriving in the city in 1969 I befriended a dancer who needed a 16mm projector to show her 16mm film.  She had invited a few guests to the viewing.  The first person to arrive was Robert Rauschenberg.  I said, "Before you come into my apartment this is the story of how I know you and your work."  He then asked, "What I had to offer as a drink", I said, "Jack Daniels,” his favorite. 

Shortly after that while working with Keith Sonnier he mentioned that he was looking for a 16mm camera to make a film.  I told him that Rauschenberg had one and he should call him.  I ended up calling and I was invited to dinner at 6pm at 6am the next morning, completely drunk, I was leaving with his camera.  As I was walking out the door he said, “wait a minute, you are leaving with my $12,000 dollar Airiflex Camera and I really don’t know who you are ---pause ---but you are from Lafayette so you are ok.”  His connecting to Lafayette and Louisiana is that his family had moved to Lafayette in 1948.

To make a long story short we became great friends and was privileged to perform solo saxophone at many of his openings as well as his traveling world tour exhibit ROCI (RAUSCHENBERG OVERSEAS CULTURAL INTERCHANGE) After his death I performed for the Memorial Services in Fort Meyers, Florida the Aratani/Japan American Theater in Los Angeles and the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.

Thank you Bob for a great ride and it isn’t over yet!

Moondog (1969)

Subject: Moondog, Poet/Composer

A blind Norwegian poet/composer who stood on the corner of 54th and 6th Ave for twenty somewhat years in his Viking garb with a cup soliciting coins. Meanwhile,  he was  composing his poetry and compositions on his braille typewriter. 

 I first met Philip Glass in the fall of 1968 at his home on 23rd St. and 8th Ave.   At one point during the visit he mentioned, "I have to make some tea for a blind friend of mine, you might know who he is."

When he mentioned Moondog's name, I said to myself, "If this man PG has Moondog living with him, I have to pay attention to PG."  

Why? In 1944 when I was six years old we got electricity on the farm in Cecilia. My father purchased a radio and we would listen to the heavyweight fights live from Madison Sq. Garden on Saturday nights.

After the fights, this raspy voice would come and say, "Live from the streets of New York, Jazz with Moondog."  

Moondog was my first introduction to jazz and first NYC underground hero.

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Philip Glass at a performance for Art on the Beach on the World Trade Center landfill in the Hudson River.  I catch a skywriter  writing an ad for  a glass company,

Philip and I started working for Richard in early 1969.  Helped him constructing his sculpture.

Discussing "Einstein on the Beach" at lunch in Avignon, France 1976

Subjects: Bruce and Philip having fun one summer afternoon in Long Island.

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Portrait 1969 in studio Mulberry St. NYC

Subject: In house performance of Object Situation Object at Keith's loft on Mulberry St. in Little Italy with strobe light.

I first met Keith in Louisiana in 1962 at the University in Lafayette, Louisiana.  Upon arrival in NYC in 1969, I began working for him as a photographer and videographer and helped him construct his work.  

Soon afterwards he wrote this...
"THE SCULPTURAL BASE HAD TO GO. I chose to work, and move, within a fourth dimension by placing two six-foot-square mirrors face to face (Mirror Act, 1969), creating what I refer to as an "infinity channel" to work within. First the manipulation of forms. Then color, forced to bounce back and forth within the infinity channel. Color as volume within architectural space. Solid color, not applied color. A spatial volume that the viewer moves through. The point is not to reflect upon the object but to make the object the situation (the title of the book for my 1971 show at Galerie Rolf Rieke, Cologne: Object, Situation, Object 

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Subject: Object Situation Objdet

Performers:  Tina Girouard, Michael Kern, Suzie Harris in Keith's loft on Mulberry St. in Little Italy.

"Object Situation Object"  Tina Girouard, Keith Sonnier and Dickie Landry

(L to R)  Tina Girouard, Keith Sonnier

"Object Situation Object"  Mulberry St. Loft; (L to R) Tina Girouard, Barry Ledoux, Keith Sonnier, Richard Landry

I am using a Airflex 16mm camera which I borrow from Robert Rauschenberg.

I begin working with Keith in early 1969 shooting still and video images in his studio.  This is a set up for a video shoot.

Set up for video shoot on Mulberry St. NYC

(L to R) Tina Girouard, Keith Sonnier and Susie Harris in studio Mulberry St. 

(L to R)  Norman Fisher, Suzie Harris and Tina Girouard

Performers:  (L to R)  Tina Girouard, Susie Harris

Performers:  (L to R)  Tina Girouard, Suzie Harras 

On roof top of Mulberry St.

 b/w video - performer, Tina Girouard

"Object Situation Object" Performers:  Keith Sonnier, Barry LeDoux and Tina Girouard.

"Object Situation Object"  performers:  Keith Sonnier, Barry LeDoux and Tina Girouard

Video projection installation

Liza Bear and Keith Sonnier produced a Two Way Demo - Send and Receive. On September 10 and 11, 1977, the first two-way live broadcast between New York and San Francisco took place. Put into position in 1976, the NASA Satellite CTS was used for the occasion. The New York-based TV station, MCTV, received a cable signal by satellite. Throughout the two-and-a-half hour-long broadcast, the two-way telecommunication was the central theme, texts are read, video material recorded and discussed. The broadcast reached almost 25,000 spectators.

Subject: Joan Jonas, performance artist.

(L to R) Joan Jonas, George Trakas

This is an image from her second performance. 

Joan was one of the many artist that I met upon arrival in NYC in 1969. She invited me to her first performance. I borrowed a friend's camera, he loaded the film, set the ASA and speed and off I went.

The next morning Joan called me and said, "I saw you there with a camera last night, do you want to sell some of your photographs?"  

At the time,  I was plumbing with Philip Glass and I thought to myself "PLUMBING----PHOTOGRAPHY"... Duh, that was an easy decision.

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Subject:  Joan's description of Jones Beach Piece

Performers: (L to R) Caroline Gooden, Susan Rothenberg, Joan Jonas, George Trakas.

In a group of outdoor pieces, I was interested in dealing directly with the effect of distance on perception. At Jones Beach I began a comprehensive open landscape piece. The site I selected was a large mud flat with intermittent and surrounding dunes. The concept of the work was organized around the perception of sound, color, and movement at a distance - the audience and the performers were separated by a quarter of a mile of intervening light and air.

At that distance perception itself becomes focused down toward the reception of signals, and the piece was shaped by the way that the space related to or intervened in the processing of these signals. Sound functioned in terms of a delay/relay system, in effect a sound delay. A performer stood in the far space, one in the middle space, and a third next to the audience, clapping blocks of wood together repeatedly.

In the far space, the act of hitting the blocks of wood was perceived before the sound was heard - distending the distance that separates the two perceptual fields of sight and sound. The effect of the piece was to measure the speed of sound through the air. As well, the work projected illusionism into the actual space-scape.

Distance flattens space, erases or alters sound, and modifies scale. Performers were given simple patterns to run: perpendicular and parallel to the audience and curvilinear and circular. Movements tend to become two-dimensional due to the illusion of the depth of field . As a way of pointing to the reduction of complex pattern to the univocal effect of a signal, and as a way of cutting through the depth of the space, I sat be hind the performers on top of a ladder holding a mirror through which I could reflect the sun's rays into the audience's eyes.

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Subject:   Jones Beach Piece

(L to R) ?, Susan Rothenberg, George Trakas

Susan Rothenberg being rolled around by George Trakas and

Joan Jonas alone

Joan Jonas giving signals to performers.

Susan & George Trakas getting ready to perform in Joan Jonas's Jones Beach Piece

In her own words, Susan's description of the 1969 downtown art world.

When I rented Mary Heilman’s loft on West Broadway and helped her move to Chinatown, I wandered into one of the richest periods of the avant-garde in music/sculpture/dance/performance theater, separate and combined, that New York has ever known.

#10 Chatham Square.  We ate at Tina Girouard and Dickie Landry’s kitchen on the second floor, or Mary Heilann’s on six.  We were Sonnier, Smithson, Serra, Jonas, Hay, Saret, Glass, Reich, Graves, Matta, Lew, Takas, Akalaitas, Winsor and many, many more.  Gumbo usually.  They talked, I listened.

Mary made gauze slings with dust and sticks of clay in them, Richard rolled and cut lead and spattered it into corners.  Deborah slowed time with breath, Steve sped time with percussion, I made camel toe bones for Nancy and nothing was stranger than the above than a Joan Jonas performance.

It’s hard to say what Joan Jonas is all about.  I don’t know what she did before she was there in front of you, naked, examining her body with a small hand held mirror.  She asked me to assist her.  I agreed.  She wanted me to lie down naked under glass in Alan Saret’s hole in the floor of his loft and have Trakas roll potatoes over the glass while a large section of the New York art world watche through mirrors.  I did/ She and I rolled across the 14th YMCA floor with a sheet of glass between us.  On Coney Island, in winter, performers strung out along the beach, clanked wood together while I, tied into a hoop, was rolled.

These were some of Joan’s visions, sounds and images from that time.  They were rehearsed and executed slowly and precisely.   We who performed with her could never ‘get’ the piece – we were the living components of it.                    

What I think she was doing was changing the world of sensory perception.  You went to a Jonas work to see one of the excruciatingly odd minds of that time make a window into her world, that would in few hours make a window in yours.

Susan Rothenberg

4/4/94

(L to R) Joan Jonas - Barbara Dilly

In a work performed in Nova Scotia in the summer of

1971, I continued my interest in the way information is

transmitted to an audience. I worked with the sense of

physical and psychic separation between audience and

performer - the one static, passive, and involved in transforming

movement into pattern; the other actively inhabiting

the space of the performance. The audience watched

this work from a cliff above the beach. Its view was

shaped by two slopes of the cliff-side that formed a V-like

channel of vision. At the bottom point of this triangular

area of the beach was a circle of stones and a line of two foot

stakes driven into the sand. The space appeared to

be a flat plane tilting up toward the horizon line of sea and

sky - its apparent flatness contradicting the actual recession

into depth. From that vantage and within the illusion

of flatness created by it, the actions of the performers

were transformed into linear patterns and layered planes.

Nova Scotia Beach Dance, 1971

Inverness, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, 1971. Performers: Joan Jonas, Nancy Topf

L/R:  Dog, Glass's son, Philip Glass, JoAnn Akalatis, Jackie Windsor and Keith Sonnier

Delay Delay, 1972

Empty lots, Lower West Side of Manhattan, viewed from the roof of 319 Greenwich Street, New York, 1972.

Performers: Ariel Bach, Marion Cajori, James Cobb, Carol Gooden, Jene Highstein, Tannis Hugill, Glenda Hydler, Joan Jonas, Epp Kotkas, Barbara Lipper, Gordon Matta-Clark, Penelope, Janelle Reiring, Karen Smith.

Delay Delay, 1972

Empty lots, Lower West Side of Manhattan, viewed from the roof of 319 Greenwich Street, New York, 1972. 

Performers: Ariel Bach, Marion Cajori, James Cobb, Carol Gooden, Jene Highstein, Tannis Hugill, Glenda Hydler, Joan Jonas, Epp Kotkas, Barbara Lipper, Gordon Matta-Clark, Penelope, Janelle Reiring, Karen Smith.

Audience for Joan Jonas's performance "West Side Highway"

Subject: Mary Heilman, painter.  

Mary and I shared a building at 10 Chatham Sq. in Chinatown for six years.

Mary Heilman from her book All Night Movie

I moved to Chinatown at 10 Chatham Square with Michael Kern, Tina Girouard and Dickie Landry.  This building was a wreck.  It had been vacant for years.   It was dark.  There were big holes in the floor.  The windows were boarded up because they were al broken.  There was a kitchen in one loft that had layers of hardened cooking-grease on the walls and a hole in the floor where a stove had once stood.    This grease was so thick that when we were gouging it away we found the shriveled preserved corpse of a rat buried in it.   The drains were rotted, the water pipes corroded.  It smelled.  Stray cats lived there.  The electricity was still turned on and on occasional dim bare light bulb hung down.  The gas was still on too, which caused us trouble later because we never bothered to change the name on the account, and then had to pay a huge bill.

In the Chatham Square building, we rented the six floors above a cigar store.  A dusty glass sign over the door said “Chu’s Family Association.”  In the past, immigrants from China had lived there as they worked their way of indentured servitude. Sometimes they stayed there for years.  In our time, artists arriving from all over stayed there for long or short periods as they became adjusted to living in New York.

There was the Louisiana contingent, the friends of Dickie:  Robert Prado, Richard Peck, Jon Smith and Rusty Gilder, musicians who came to New York to play in the newly formed Philip Glass Ensemble. 

There were the Europeans, traveling artists, mainly members of the Arte Povera or of Art and Language groups---Emilio Prini, Germano Celant, Kathryn Bigelow, Lawrence Weiner, and Joseph Kosuth.  There were  Columbia and NYU students, people from the West Coast, mainly conceptual artists from Los Angeles:  William Wegman, John Baldessari, and John Knight.  Alan Saret brought Gordon Matta-Clark around after he had graduated from Cornell.  There were Chinese kids from the neighborhood who wandered in because they heard the music.

Now this was 1976, and things were really starting to heat up.  We were all starting to work.  The biggest thing was Philip Glass and Robert Wilson collaborating on Einstein on the Beach.  There was so much energy and excitement around that.   The musicians were rehearsing at Chatham Square, and Lucinda Childs was always with Wilson helping to write the play.  Dickie Landry was one of the main musicians and he was making working photographs as the images of the piece took shape.  Keith Sonnier was doing bicoastal video pieces.  Then there was Suzie Harris, engaged, wired, wild, active, aggressive and generous.   Suzie hadn’t gone to art school—she came into the downtown world through music.

We listened to a lot of Zydeco because Dickie and the Louisiana connection.  Cajun.  Lots of Cajun cooking.  Tina, Dickie and Keith would get together and cook.  They cooked gumbo, shrimp etouffee , dirty rice.  Once they even had crayfish shipped up from the South for a party.  Gordon Matta-Clark cooked, too.  Cooking was part of his art.  The pieces he made when he first came to New York involved cooking and for this he made an elaborate cooking urn that hung from the ceiling and was heated by a gas burner fueled by portable tank.  Frying bull’s blood, another by the frying of photographs, made one of his early works.  It was Gordon who had the idea for the restaurant, Food that he opened with Tina Girouard and Carol Gooden down the street from 112 Green Street, the cooperative gallery started by Jeffrey Lew, where everyone showed their work.  This was in the very early days of SOHO.  At Food artists would make guest appearance’s Bob Rauschenberg made a supper of marrowbones and Gordon was part of that event serving as sous-chef and adorable boy.  He was cute.  He looked like the Matisse slave.

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Portrait 1969 Whitney Museum Concert with Phase Swifter control panel.

Subject:  Rehearsal in Reich's loft.  (L to R)  Arthur Murphy, Jon Gibson,

Steve Reich, Steve Chambers

Subject:  Performance Whitney Museum of Art NYC 1969.  From (L to R) Arthur Murphy, Philip Glass, Steve Chambers, Steve Reich and Jon Gibson center on maracas. 

Steve Reich in his studio rehearsing

Subject: Steve Reich

Steve and his control panel used to perform his Phase Music 

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Subject:  Performance of Pendulum at Whitney Museum of Art NYC 1969.  (L to R) Richard Serra, James Tenny, Steve Reich, Bruce Nauman, and Michael Snow.

Pendulum:  Four speakers laid flat on stage, performers were there to release the microphones which swung over the speakers creating a feedback.  Microphones not in sync.

Reich's "Two Pianos" 1970

"Phase Box" 1969 Whitney Museum of Art NYC

(Left to Right) Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Jon Gibson, Dickie Landry, James Tenny

The idea was that each performer would strike the log drum when he heard a click in the right or left ear.

Subject: Richard Serra

While working with Richard one day on a film, he decided to take a piece of rolled lead which is very heavy and see how long he could hold it up.

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A 16mm film shot by Bob Fiore of Serra Trying to see how long he could hold this lead roll.  I took still images.

Subject: Richard Serra

Richard touching up the wooden platform at the Guggenheim for his retrospective in 1972.

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Set up for splashing process in Castelli Warehouse (1969)

Splashing consisted of melting lead and splashing it against the lead triangle then letting cool and peeling it off.  Glass and I helped Richard do these pieces.

Subject:  Richard Serra's sculpture 2+2+1 for Dickie & Tina

Richard's show at Leo Castelli Warehouse consisted of lead plates 4'x4', half inch thick and each plate weighting 400 lbs. 

I met Richard through Philip Glass early 1969 and we both work with him for about a year. 

Interview with Richard Serra by Gerard Hovagymyan

When I started, we were hand-manipulating pieces.  These pieces were not joined in any permanent manner.  The only possible means to erect them was with the help of other people who were choreographed in relation to the material.  We had to stand in certain relation to each other and in definite relationship to the construction, and lean the construction in.  We did 6 or 7 pieces this way.  It was the second lead series, conceived as weight, as counterbalance---the weight overhead compressed downward and held up what was underneath.  We had to walk in with a bar and set it with linchpin accuracy.  These pieces were shown at the Castelli Warehouse in 1969.   There were several people involved …Phil Glass, Chuck Close, Spalding Gray, Dickie Landry and others.  Together, we would map out what to do.  Two people would be on each plate.  There four or five plates.  And then Phil and I would fit in the overhead roll.  The pieces were titled  1-1-1,  2-1-2,  2-1-2.

 In a sense, it was not what you call “rigging’ In terms of using tools other than your hands, but I have always thought of rigging as a hand-extension.  All technology is a hand extension---electricity is a central nervous system extension.  I think that there is no model for rigging, no book from which you can learn.  There is no prescribed way to go about doing it.   There are three or four principles you can learn…they go between a nutcracker, a wheelbarrow and a pulley.  Other than that it is knowing where the fulcrum is.  You must rely on your experience in handling materials, knowing weight loads and leverage principals, having a compentent engineer.

Workers on this project were: Me, Philip Glass, Chuck Close and Spalding Grey.

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Each plate is four foot square and weighs 400 lbs.  and held together by the lead roll laying on top of the four plates.  Chuck Close, Splading Grey, Philip Glass and I helped build these pieces.

(L to R) "1+1+1+1" - "1+1+1"

Installation Los Angelas, CA 

Subject: Wheel  in 112 Greene St. 

I first met Susie when I arrived in NYC in 1969 through her musician husband Paul Harris.  Instant friends with both.  

They invited me to  a three day and night party at their 2nd floor loft at 112 Greene St. The music world was there. 

I remember walking in and seeing a group of musicians sitting in the corner.  I asked, "who are they," Paul said "they musicians from Jamaica and they play reggae."  I didn't know what reggae was but every time this group would jam, I would sit in with my flute. A week later, this is early Feburary, it was -10 degrees outside and five o'clock in the morning when I received a call. "Hey mon", in that Jamaican accent, "we really like the way you play that flute mon,  we are in the Bronx recording, come and join us."  

My reply, "a white boy at five in the morning in the Bronx is a dead white boy and besides its -10 and I not to sure how to get there, thank you for calling." You have to realize that the Bronx in those days was on fire as the landlords were burning there buildings, it would be like going into a war zone.

Years later, I found out that I had turned Bob Marley down.

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Subject: Wheel  in 112 Greene St. 

I first met Susie when I arrived in NYC in 1969 through her musician husband Paul Harris.  Instant friends with both.  

They invited me to  a three day and night party at their 2nd floor loft at 112 Greene St. The music world was there. 

I remember walking in and seeing a group of musicians sitting in the corner.  I asked, "who are they," Paul said "they musicians from Jamaica and they play reggae."  I didn't know what reggae was but every time this group would jam, I would sit in with my flute. A week later, this is early Feburary, it was -10 degrees outside and five o'clock in the morning when I received a call. "Hey mon", in that Jamaican accent, "we really like the way you play that flute mon,  we are in the Bronx recording, come and join us."  

My reply, "a white boy at five in the morning in the Bronx is a dead white boy and besides its -10 and I not to sure how to get there, thank you for calling." You have to realize that the Bronx in those days was on fire as the landlords were burning there buildings, it would be like going into a war zone.

Years later, I found out that I had turned Bob Marley down.

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Subject: Performance at Washington Square Church, NYC, 1974.

I first met Jon in 1969 when he and I joined the newly formed Philip Glass Ensemble. Jon is still performing with the ensemble and has performed every Einstein on the Beach production since 1976.

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Subject: Performance of Rhythm Study for Voice, Hands, Feet

Subject: Claping Hands (1974) Performance at Washington Square Church, NYC, 1974

Subject:   Thirty-Two against Eleven (( L to R) Martha Siegler (1974) Martha Siegler, Arthur Russell, Barbara Benary, Jon Gibson (1974

Subject: Song 1 performance at Washington Square Church (1974)

This image was on cover of Artfroum in 1970 and again in Artfoum ad in Feb. 2015 issue for upcoming exhibition.  

The sculptures were made of burlap, wax, fiberglass and animal skin.

Subject: sculpture by Nancy Graves. 

Photo of the camels and bones Nancy and her assistants made by hand. 

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Subject: sculpture by Nancy Graves.

Photograph of the camels in Nancy's studio on Mulberry St. in Little Italy.  

Nancy was the first woman artist to have a solo retrospective at the Whitney Museum of Art.

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Subject: sculpture by Nancy Graves.

Nancy attending to the camel.

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Subject:  Nancy Graves "Camel Skeleton" in her loft on Mulberry St. NYC

In Nancy's loft on Mulberry St. Little Italy 1969

Feeding camel at the zoo.

Poster for EOB at Metropolitan Opera House, NYC 

Subject:  EOB at the Fenice Opera House in Venice, Italy 1976

Subject: Robert Wilson and Philip Glass discussing Einstein on the Beach in an early rehearsal January 1976 in Lucinda Child's loft.

(L to R) Robert Wilson, Philip Glass

EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH a collaboration by Robert Wilson / Philip Glass / Lucinda Childs:

The original production of Einstein on the Beach, an opera in 4 acts by Robert Wilson and Philip Glass with choreography by Lucinda Childs, was created with a 36 member cast.  It was performed without interruption for 5 hours. Premiered in July, 1976 at Festival d'Avignon, the production toured Hamburg, Paris Belgrade, Venice, Brussels, Rotterdam, and finally traveled to New York City for 2 performances in November, 1976.

This is not a narrative form; it doesn't tell a story or deal with biography or history, but instead takes off from the popular image of Einstein. It works by association of a shared dream. Wilson says: "It's not trying to illustrate Einstein the way that history books do. It's trying to present a poetical interpretation of the man..... The character of the person becomes what the piece is about. The more you know about the person, the better." Glass says: "What we did with Einstein was to take a person....make him the subject. It was a way in which the person replaces the idea of plot or story."

There are three quotations from Einstein that seem central to the making and understanding of the work: "In the universe, everything that happens has a reason, even if we don't know what it is." "The most beautiful experience one can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science." "In the universe, when anything else moves faster, time moves slower."

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Subject: Wilson/Glass "Einstein on the Beach" first rehearsal with actors in Lucinda Child's loft in Soho on Broadway.  I began photographing EOB from day one till openings in Avignon, France 7/25, 1976

(L to R) Glass/Wilson

Sheryl Sutton

Lucinda Childs

Subject: Image of  "Knee II" used for poster for Einstein on the Beach  

(Left to Right) Sheryl Sutton, Lucinda Childs

I first met Bob in 1974.  It wasn’t until 1975 that we met again at a Philip Glass Ensemble rehearsal. The word was that the French Minister of Culture, Michael Guy, was coming with a proposal for Bob and Philip. I was privileged to be part of the conversation. 

The idea was that to honor and celebrate America’s Bi-Centennial anniversary the Government of France was offering a commission for an opera.

First rehearsals were in Lucinda Childs loft on Broadway. I asked Bob if I could photograph the rehearsals, he agreed. I photographed from the first day of rehearsals,early January 1976, through the premier in Avignon, France  and subsequent cities that we toured in Europe.

Before the beginning of the tour of Europe, I asked Bob if he needed a photograph for a poster. He said “Yes, but I need it by 10 am in the morning.” 

I set up Lucinda and Sheryl in the chairs that were used in Knee II.  I went home processed the film and started to get rid of all the back ground stuff around the two performers. I stayed up all night working on this and nothing was working, remember, no Photoshop in those days.

After being up all night and frustrated,  a friend came to visit at eight in the morning and asking what I was up to, I showed him the problem. He said, “ Go to the photo store and buy a bottle of Photo Bleach and with cotton swab go around the edges.” 

It worked. I arrived at the office at 9:30 with photo in hand, Bob takes one look at it and has his assistant mail if off to France to be used in all the posters for the engagements in Europe and the two sold performances at the Metropolitan Opera House in NYC.

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Subject: "Knee I" Original image used for poster for EOB, pre PhotoShop.

(L to R) Sheryl Sutten, Lucinda Childs

Sheryl Sutton and Lucinda Childs "Knee Play I" final version

"Knee III"

Sheryl Sutton/Lucinda Childs

Beginning rehearsal

"Knee III"

Sheryl Sutton and Lucinda Childs early rehearsal in Lucinda's loft on Broadway

Performers:

Lucinda Childs, Sheryl L, Sutton, Samuel M. Johnson, Paul Mann, George Andoniadis, Connie Beckly, Kitty A. Birchfield, Frank Conversano, Charles Dennis, Gretha Holby, Jeannie Hutchins, Mark Jacob, Richard Morrison, Dana Reitz, Ronald Roxbury, David P. Woodberry.

Musicians:

Richard Landry, Jon Gibson, Richard Peck, Iris Hiskey, Philip Glass, Michael Reisman, and Rober Brown

"Knee Play IV"  

Beginning rehearsals  with Sheryl Sutton and Lucinda Childs

"Knee Play IV"

(L to R) Sheryl Sutton, Lucinda Childs

"Dance One" early rehearsals:

David Woodberry flying! 

"Dance I"  Beginning rehearsals:

Dancers had to be able to sing and singers had to be able to dance!

"Dance I" 

First rehearsals in Lucinda Childs Loft on Brodadway

Beginning rehearsals EOB

Subject:  Train 1 from Einstein on the Beach 1976

I performed the music for this opera countless times as a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble.  

Subject:  "Dance I" EOB 1976

"Dance One"

"Trial/Prison

"Trial"

(L to R) Lucinda Childs, Dana Ritz

Subject:  "Bed" from EOB 1976

(L to R) Greta Holby, Lucinda Childs

"Bed"

Subject:  "Building"  from EOB 1976

Subject:  Knowles in performance.

"Dia-Log 3" (1976)

Subject: Dia-Log 3  1976 Written by Robert Wilson and Christopher Knowles

(L to R) Robert Wilson, Lucinda Childs in performance at Whitney Museum of Art, NYC.

Subject: Dia-Log 3  Knolwes in performance at Whitney Museum of Art NYC 1976.   Written by Robert Wilson and Christopher Knowles.  

Subject: Dia-Log 3  1976 Written by Robert Wilson and Christopher Knowles

Robert Wilson in performance Whitney Museum of Art, NYC

Subject: Dia-Log 3  1976 Written by Robert Wilson and Christopher Knowles

Lucinda Childs and Christopher Knowles in performance at Whitney Museum of Art, NYC

Subject: Dia-Log 3  1976 Written by Robert Wilson and Christopher Knowles

In performance at Whitney Museum of Art, NYC 

(L to R) Robert Wilson, Christopher Knowles

(L to R) Philip Glass, Christopher Knowles and Chuck Close

Gallery opening of Robert Wilson's drawings and Philip Glass's scores to "Einstein on the Beach"

Original photo

Subject: Gordon Matta-Clark "Food Restaurant" 

Gordon drew through the signage to use image as promotion for the restaurant .

(L to R)  Tina Girouard, Caroline Gooden, Gordon Matta-ClarkThey opened this restaurant on the corner of Wooster and Prince St. in then nonexistent  SOHO.  It was primarly run by artist.  

Food became a legend. It was recreated at the Frieze Festival summer of 2013 on Randall Island in NYC, roasted pig and all.

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Food was located at Prince and Wooster in SOHO.  Opened by Gordon Matta-Clark, Carol Gooden and Tina Girouard in 1972.  Many artist and musicians worked there.  It was a God send for the art community.

Gordon preparing the first meal at Food! 1972

Gordon Matta-Clark

Gordan roasting a pig underneath the Brooklyn Bridge as an art installation for Brooklyn Bridge Event organized by Alanna Heiss. 

Gordon Matta-Clark "Pig Roast Brooklyn Bridge Event"   Organized by Alanna Heiss

(L to R) Gordon Matta-Clark, Lee Jaffie. Jackie Windsor, Alice Prado, Jene HIghstein and Keith Sonnier. 

Gordon Matta-Clark and Richard Nonas tasting the roasted pig for the "Brooklyn Bridge Event" organized by Alanna Heiss.  Event was held underneath  the West Side of the Brooklyn Bridge.

When I first visited Gordon on Christe St. he was doing these pieces where he would let food stuff turn to mold.  I found this very interesting and soon became a good friend.  I then begin to help him cut up buildings.

Agar-agar and mixed media.

Installation at 112 Greene St. NYC

While doing renovations on Food, Gordon cut this piece from the wall and exhibited it at 112 Greene St.

Installation at 112 Greene St.  I helped Gordon on most of these cuts.

Installation at 112 Greene St.

Installation at 112 Greene St.

Installation at 112 Greene St.

for "Time Well"

112 Greene St. basement installation.

Subject: William S Burroughs

I worked with Burroughs on Laurie Anderson's  movie Home of the Brave.  

While on tour with the Glass Ensemble in Europe, I ran across Bill in Brussels at a book signing  At the time, I had a 1/2 frame 35mm Bell and Howell Dial 35 camera. You wound it up and one could shoot sequential shots. I asked him if I could take a photograph.

He didn't realize that I was shooting sequentially. So, he gives his grumpy old man look and then one smile.

His daughter says that is the only photograph that she or her family has of Bill smiling.

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Cover of catalogue;  First installation at the Paul & Lulu Hilliard University Museum in Lafayette, Louisiana 2014.

My first concert with my friends from Lafayette, Louisiana

Leo Castelli Gallery 420 West Broadway NYC

"1.2.3.4" B/W Video of clapping hands with strobe light.

Subject:  Dickie Landry 1,2,3,4  100"x120"

Twenty five 20"x24" B/W images from a video of the same name. With strobe light ticking like a metronome I am seen beating rhythm on a piece of foam with my hands which later turns into hand clapping. The photographs along with the video were shown at the Leo Castilli Gallery at 420 West Broadway in 1975. 

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Split screen B/W video of me playing the alto flute

1433—The Grand Voyage, directed by Robert Wilson 

Between 1405 and 1433, the Ming dynasty government sponsored a series of seven long-distance naval expeditions of exploration and discovery, with Admiral Zheng He, a high-ranking court eunuch, leading a fleet of several hundred gigantic treasure ships. 1433—The Grand Voyage is a parable based on Zheng He's seventh and final voyage. A poetic vision about a man who, due to his emasculation and position at Court, finds himself alone.

Loosely based on extant historical texts, 1433—The Grand Voyage counterpoints highly structured drumming and strong physical performance of the Taiwan U-Theater with the free jazz music of American luminaries Ornette Coleman and Dickie Landry. Rather than attempting to reiterate history, 1433 is Robert Wilson's poetic vision of one man's lonely search for peace and reconciliation.

Credits:

Les Negres a clown play by Jean Genet.  Directed by Robert Wilson at the Odeon October 3rd thru November 21st 2014 Paris, France.  Original music Dickie Landry

                                              [Les Nègres]

by Jean Genet

Premiered on October 3, 2014 at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, Paris, France

Performed in French.

“Ever since the revelation of Deafman Glance, those who experience a work by Robert Wilson know that they are head and body smack in the middle of our historical patrimony of the contemporary performing arts. As for Genet, no one will dispute his rightful seat at the table of 20th century classics. Hieratic and carnavelesque, The Blacks is a multi-faceted work, drawn from theater (the burlesque theater of clowns), ritual and improvisation. Wilson refuses to choose between the numerous possible readings. Without ever being didactic, he paints, gives rhythm to and minutely fine-tunes his sublime choreographies according to his unique and inimitable language.”

Subject: Mabou Mines, Dressed Like an Egg rom the writings of Colette directed by JoAnne Akalaitis.

In the mid-1960s, Lee Breuer, Ruth Maleczech, JoAnne Akalaitis, Philip Glass, and David Warrilow came together with the goal of developing a new theatrical language in which text, staging, visual, and score all carried equal weight.  The name, Mabou Mines, comes from a small mining town  in Nova Scotia.

JoAnne Akalaitis

JoAnne Akalaitis

Subject: Mabou Mines, Dress Like an Egg  from the writings of Colette directed by JoAnne Akalaitis.

I loved photographing Mabou Mines.  They would rehearse a three minute scene for a week.  I could ask them to hold a poise so I could set up shots and then they would continue to rehearse.

(L to R) William Raymond - Ruth Maleczech

(L to R) David Warrilow, William Raymond, JoAnne Akalaitis, Ellen McElduff

Ruth Maleczech

David Warrilow

(L to R) JoAnne Akalaitis, Ellen McElduff,  Ruth Maleczech

(L to R) Ellen McElduff  - Ruth Maleczech

(L to R) JoAnne Akalaitis - David Warrilow

(L to R) William Raymond - David Warrilow

Ellen McElfuff

Ellen McElduff

(L to R) Ellen McElduff, William Raymond, David Warrilow, Ruth Macleczech

(L toR)  David Warrilow, William Raymond, Ellen McElduff

(L to R) William Raymond - Ruth Macleczeck

Ellen McElduff

Subject: Mabou Mines, Scene from Dressed Like an Egg

Performer: Ruth Maleczech

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(L to R) William Raymond - Ellen McElduff

(L to R) William Raymond - Ellen McElduff

(L to R) William Raymond - Ellen McElduff

David Warrilow 

Cast and crew.

The set for Beckett's "Lost Ones"

Only twelve people at a time could see the play.  David won an Obie for his performance.

Subject: David Warrilow, Actor

The Lost Ones

By Samuel Beckett
Adapted and Directed by Lee Breuer
Music Composed and
Performed by Philip Glass
WITH
David Warrilow
Linda (Hartinian) Wolfe
Bill Raymond
Ellen McElduff

AWARDS
OBIE Award for distinguished acting to David Warrilow, 1976 

The Lost Ones is a narrative fragment which takes place in a windowless cylinder where " lost bodies roam, each searching for its lost one."  It was based on a short story by Samuel Beckett with very little prose.  In the play there is no plot, but information is dispersed in short phrases, which  frequently repeat.

AWARDS

OBIE Award for distinguished acting to David Warrilow, 1976 

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Subject: David Warrilow's legendary performance in 1975 at Theatre For The New City. 

The Lost Ones By Samuel Beckett
Adapted and Directed by Lee Breuer
Music Composed and
Performed by Philip Glass
WITH
David Warrilow
Linda (Hartinian) Wolfe
Bill Raymond
Ellen McElduff

AWARDS
OBIE Award for distinguished acting to David Warrilow, 1976 

Contact .

David Warrilow

Subject: David Warrilow, Actor

David Warrilow

Subject: David Warrilow, Actor 

The Lost Ones

By Samuel Beckett
Adapted and Directed by Lee Breuer
Music Composed and
Performed by Philip Glass
WITH
David Warrilow
Linda (Hartinian) Wolfe
Bill Raymond
Ellen McElduff

AWARDS
OBIE Award for distinguished acting to David Warrilow, 1976 

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Subject: David Warrilow, Actor

David Warrilow in Samuel Beckett's monologue play The Lost Ones

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David Warrilow

Close up of the little people

David Warrilow

David Warrilow

David Warrilow 

David Warrilow 

Leo Castelli anouncement.

Subject:  Tina Girouard preparing to paint, Lawrence Weiner's One Quart Exterior Green Industrial Enamel Thrown on a Brick Wall

Subject: Lawrence Weiner, Conceptual Artist

A scene from Weiner's film A First Quarter.  The inscription  on the wall reads: One Quart Exterior Green Industrial Enamel Thrown on a Brick Wall (words painted by Tina Girouard).

Lawrence Weiner, A First Quarter

1973, 85 min, b&w, sound
"Using the structure of a feature film as its basic format, A First Quarter adopts the principles of nouvelle vague cinema as its role model. Simultaneous realities, altered flashbacks, plays on time and space are all components of the form and content of the film. Because it was originally shot in video and then kinescoped to 16 mm film, A First Quarter has acquired a poetic, soft look. The dialogue consists entirely of the work as it is spoken and read, built, enacted, written and painted by the players. As the scenarios build, they appear as tropes, one after another." —Alice Weiner

Produced by Leo Castelli Gallery, New York City and Jack Wendler, London. Executive Producer: Joyce Nereaux. Cinematography: Andy Mann.

Music: Richard Landry (performed by Richard Landry, Richard Peck, Robert Prado, Rusty Gilder, and David Lee). Audio Engineer: Kurt Munkacsi. Players: Elaine Grove, Mel Kendrick, Bella Obermaier, Tina Girouard. First Screening: Leo Castelli Gallery, New York City, March 14-16, 1973.

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Subject:  From "A First Quarter" 1973

Subject:  Scene from Lawrence Weiner's "A First Quarter"

(L to R)  Mel Kendrick - Elaine Grove

Subject: Lawrence Weiner

Subject:  Weiner directing a scene form A Frist Quarter  (

(L to R)  Mel Kendrick, Bella Obemaier, Lawrence Weiner

I met Lawrence early on and begin working with him videoing his work.  At one point he asked me to do the music for a film that he was working on, I said "I have the music."  While we where filming and we needed music I pushed play on a jam box and we had music.  I later released the cuts on vinyl.  "4 Cuts Placed In" produced by Leo Castelli for the newly formed record company Chatham Square Records.

Subject:  Scene from Lawrence Weiner's film "A First Quarter"

(L to R) Bella Obermaier, Elaine Grove, Mel Kendrick

(L to R) Bella Obermaier, Mel Kendrick, Elaine Groove

Subject:  Scene from Lawrence Weiner's film.

Elaine Grove

Subject:  Lawrence Weiner 

(L to R)  Lawrence Weiner - Elaine Grove

Ulrich laid a square piece of steel on the floor and with a sledge hammer begin to pound in a circle till all four edges came off the floor.  He never titles his pieces.

Subject: Ulrich bending iron rod.

We became great friends and I spent a lot of time with him in his home town of  Mönchengladbach, Germany.

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Subject: Ulrich Rückriem installing his work Untitled 

Ullrich was hired  when he graduated from high school after the Second World War as a apprentice stonemason to help rebuild the cathedral in Cologne, Germany.   With this experience he gained, Ulrich turned to sculpture.

Subject: 

Salomon Contemporary NYC 2/28/15'

"Dickie Landry's NYC 1969-1979"  February 2015

 Installation:  Salomon Contemporary 2/28/15

Salomon Contemporary NYC 2/28/15'

9-12-20015

Installation:  9-12-2015

University of Wyoming Museum of Art @ Laramie, WY

9-12-2015

University Art Museum @ Laramie, Wyoming Sept-Dec. 2015

University of Wyoming Art Museum @ Laramie.  Sept-Dec. 2915

Cologne, Germany September - October 2014

Cologne, Germany September - October 2014

Cologne, Germany September - October 2014