MY "80s POLAROIDS" FEAT. UNSEEN PICS OF ANDY WARHOL, KEITH HARING, JOHN WATERS, FRAN LEBOWITZ & MORE...

In a past life, as a fresh, 21-year old Texas transplant I worked as a designer in the Vogue (& later, Vanity Fair) art departments.. 

I was also a young club bunny on the scene in Downtown NYC meeting lots of new people. Everyone I knew went out all of the time. It was the 80s in NYC and every night of the week there as SOMETHING someone you know was doing at a club or gallery.

Places like Mudd Club, Danceteria, Pyramid, Area, MK, Limelight, Rock Lounge, Save the Robots or one of some 200 galleries in the East Village alone, like Gracie Mansion or Fun Gallery which showed Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat early on, not to mention ones in SoHo and Uptown.

On occasion, I’d bring along my Polaroid camera, often taking two and giving the other away to the subject. 

The Pyramid was close to my apt on Avenue B and in the early days I was a regular there and met all the drag stars of the day; Ethyl  Eichelberger, Tabboo!, Hapi Phace, Linda Simpson, Sister Dimension, Alexis deLago, Madame Ekathrina Sobechenskaya, RuPaul, Lady Bunny…

At Pyramid, I hosted a Sunday night event called Straight to Hell. My friend Victor Weaver had taken over as editor of STH: The Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts which were true homoerotic stories (sort of Grindr hook-ups in print.) And so we had a party/performance every Sunday for the magazine.

I did this while holding down a full-time job at Vanity Fair, essentially just inviting guest to do whatever they wanted on stage. Legendary performers and personalities, as well as Downtown superstars…

Names like John Waters, Quentin Crisp, Fran Leibowitz, Taylor Mead, Cookie Mueller, Jackie Curtis, John Kelly, John Sex, Tanya Ransom and Kenneth Anger, the filmmaker responsible for the underground classics “Scorpio Rising” and “Lucifer Rising” and the author of “Hollywood Baylon I & 2”. (No Polaroid of him, sadly.)

I also just shot portaits of my friends. (And selfies.) Many are  happily still around, some long gone, others I don’t speak to anymore. That’s life. 

One thing everyone pictured here has in common: creativity. I can say confidently, this a supremely talented bunch of people.

I’ve been lucky enough to surround myself with creative friends. Some here were already famous, others were just getting known & went on to world acclaim.

Shooting Polaroids was really the Instagram of its day (a tight crop is intimate) except that you only shared them with who was standing there at the time. But you had a print, a physical record of the moment. I suppose in 30 years there’ll be Instagram shows but you’d better start collecting & storing them now, otherwise finding and editing them will be a bitch. Either that, or start shooting Polaroids. They’re back!

These pictures were in boxes taunting me for the last few decades to do something with them. They were always a “future” project in the back of my mind that I’ve “been meaning to get to.” 

Well, I finally got to them. Edited, scanned and cleaned up some 100 pictures for a limited edition book and exhibition Trey Speegle: 80s Polaroids, at my Gallery 52, in upstate New York. (You can see the whole show and buy prints on Artsy.)

There are more where these came from, but we’ll see how long volume two takes me...

–Trey Speegle

STELLA MCCARTNEY TALKS TO DEREK BLASBERG ABOUT HER LONG ASSOCIATION WITH ARTISTS (COUNT ME AMONG THEM!)

Art journalist and Instagrammer about town interview designer Stella McCartney about her longtime associate with artists for Gagosian gallery’s in-house magazine.

Stella is of course the daughter of Sir Paul & Linda McCartney. She’s known for pioneering “vegan style,” a term referring to the designs of her luxury label, which don’t use fur or any other animal products. 

I’m not mentioned among the bold-faced names in this interview (why would I be?) but I created a huge backdrop (18 x 32′) for her 2010 Spring collection. Stella’s team contacted me and said she wanted to collaborate, then we spoke on the phone and I sent her various mock-ups. You can see a short video of the collection and me below.

What I didn’t know at the time is that her knowledge of modern and contemporary art stretched back to her grandfather, her late Mom ‘s father. As you’ll read below, he represented the likes of Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Joseph Cornell, Josef Albers and Mark Rothko.And visiting Long Island in Summers, through various art dealers, she met just about EVERYONE.

Blasberg spoke to her about that childhood surrounded by artists and how they continue to influence her design process.

DB:This isn’t your first conversation with artists. One of my favorite things to do with you is reminisce about your whole family’s longtime connection to contemporary art. Your mother’s father was the lawyer to all those incredible—

SMCC: My grandpa, Lee Eastman! He was an entertainment lawyer and represented all kinds of great artists, as well as actors, writers, all of the great creatives of that period in New York. He used to write Quincy [Jones]’s paycheck when Quincy was only a kid. Quincy always reminds me of that when I see him. He also worked with the Abstract Expressionists. So he represented de Kooning and built his studio out in the Hamptons, in the Springs. So, yeah, I was hanging out with de Kooning all my life growing up. He drew all these charcoals of my mom because he and my mom got on really well. Later my dad became good friends with Bill too.

Paul McCartney with "Bill" deKooning

DB: Bill?

SMCC: Yes! We called him Bill, that’s how much we hung out! But my grandpa represented Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell and Joseph Cornell and Josef Albers and Mark Rothko. I mean, it was insane really. We grew up with all of that around us as kids.

DB: There’s an amazing picture your mom took of your dad and de Kooning.

SMCC: At his studio on the chairs. I have a copy of that, it’s beautiful. It’s funny because I still go to the studio every summer and I can still go out there and sit on those chairs.

DB: Of course, they still have the chairs!

SMCC: Yeah, they’re still there. It’s amazing, and now it’s his grandchildren out there. Sadly, his daughter passed away.

DB: That must have been incredible to see from such a young age.

SMCC: Looking back now, I feel very privileged. But back then it was just a room and some chairs. Know what’s crazy? My grandpa used to swap his time in law fees for art. He was one of the last true collectors. It was all for the love of it. None of it was monetary. He’d come home with a de Kooning and my grandma would be like, “What the fuck is this? How am I going to feed the kids with a painting?” But when he passed away, he had the largest private collection of Abstract Expressionism.

DB: Do you know where some of the paintings are now?

SMCC: They pop up. I’ve had friends, who I won’t mention, say to me, “Oh, I’m going to buy your grandfather’s Kline,” and I’m like, “Noooo!” I remember we’d come home from de Kooning’s studio in the ’90s and some critics had accused him of having Alzheimer’s because he’d gone into the white period. I remember the discussions because my grandfather was his lawyer. They’d say, “Is this worthless, this art?” Which is actually so poetic and beautiful and breathtaking. And of course the critics were wrong. I remember being so moved by those works and now I appreciate living and breathing that then.

Stella with Jeff Koons

DB: Has your perspective on the art world changed since then?

SMCC: It’s sort of fluid for me. For example, Leo Castelli was always around in our life when I was a child. And that turned into Larry Gagosian, maybe with Tony Shafrazi and some other characters in between. In London, Robert Fraser was the equivalent, and he was one of my mom’s best friends. My father bought some Magrittes off of him. The art world is like a whole separate life. Peter Blake is my godfather. It’s all still in my life. I mean, Ringo [Starr] is a huge [George] Condo collector! [Allen] Ginsberg and all these other kinds of artists were around constantly too. [David] Bowie and music artists. It was such a huge influence on me.

DB: And it continues now.

SMCC: Of course it does! I grew up, went to college, and became a fashion designer and found my own little gang. Urs Fischer! He’s done campaigns with me. I met Jeff Koons at Larry’s house for dinner one summer. I met Ed Ruscha when I wrote a fan letter. Cindy Sherman I met in the Springs and I go and see her every summer. I’ve accumulated an incredible collection of work by amazing artists and I feel so blessed I’ve been able to work with many of them.

Trey Speegle, Yes, 2009, 18′ x 32′, acrylic, archival pigment on canvas. Collection of Stella McCartney

(Photos, Paul McCartney, Stella McCartney, Tony Barson; via Gagosian Quarterly)

DOC “KENNY SCHARF: WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE” COMING IN APRIL 2021 (Co-Directed By Daughter, Malia Scharf)

Greenwich Entertainment has acquired the U.S. distribution rights to the documentary feature Kenny Scharf: When Worlds Collide. 

The film is slated to debut in theaters and on digital platforms across the country this April 23.

The doc marks the directorial debut feature from Max Basch and Scharf’s daughter, Malia. It made its world premiere last year at SXSW, which was virtual, I believe. 

I’ve know Kenny decades and look forward to Malia’s take on her father’s life and work. Malia has worked long and hard to get the financing to get this film made and I’m sure Dad is super proud.

Shot over 11 years, it explores life of artist/activist/Dad, Kenny Scharf and has interviews and rare archival footage featuring; Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Ed Ruscha, Dennis Hopper, Yoko Ono, KAWS, Marilyn Minter, Jeffrey Deitch and more.

Here’s Kenny talking about the painting, When the World’s Collide at the Whitney Museum.

Watch.

Below are some personal pics of mine at Kenny’s opening in 2013 at Paul Kasmin and his studio in Brooklyn the day he was closing it up in April of 2015. He lives and works in LA now.

With the. artist

Dad and daughter at the after party on the roof of The Standard Hotel, NYC

KARBOMBZ! Kenny had custom-detailed over 200 cars, including my 1999 Beetle. A book is in the works…