Rivington School: 80's New York Underground

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 1980's 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 a.k.a. 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 a.k.a. Kevin Wendell, and assembled by Rivington School spokesman Monty Cantsin a.k.a. Istvan Kantor in collaboration with Toyo Tsuchiya, photographer.

“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