Vito Acconci

 


 

Flashbacks

During a relatively short but active stay in New York City in the ’70s, photographer Valerie Brown managed to capture on film a number of the most popular and/or important figures in the art world of the day. This all before digital photography, of course, and it’s taken some time for these analog images to be converted to a digital format suitable for framing within the borders of a computer screen. We’re most pleased to be able to bring them to you here.

 

The Album 

 

About “The Album”

The Marisol photos with Carlos Alemany and Louise Nevelson were taken at Marisol’s 1975 opening at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York City. Carlos was a good friend of both Marisol and Salvador Dali. 

Vito Acconci followed me for four hours after I took his photo, I believe as a performance piece. He would hide whenever I turned around. He was a minimalist and performance artist, thus the blank space with one chair.

Lowell Nesbit was the opposite. He had an old firehouse in the meat packing district. Four stories with male nudes lining the stairs. He had assistants or servants in robes to let me in and lead me to the pool room. Nesbit was wearing gold contact lenses.

Carroll Janis had suggested I photograph Jack Youngerman, who was going to call his friend Jasper Johns to photograph him, as well. But I left NYC shortly after and it never happened.

 


 

About the photographer: 

Valerie Brown is a frequent contributor to Ragazine.CC. You can read more about her in About Us.