Glad to hear back from you!! Discovering your webpage and all those fotos of the East Village art scene was such a thrill!!
I moved to New York from Vienna after having worked on the film production of „Holocaust“ with Merrill Streep, Michael Moriarty & James Woods in 1977. In early 1978 I started working in Soho for a silk screen printer, Studio Heinrici, doing fine art printing. It was there that I met Peter Grass and Cal Thompson (who sadly died of a heart attack just last July), and we became best friends. Shortly thereafter I met Judith Wong, photographer and Peter met Sally Beers (fashion designer) both now in New Mexico, and we became a four-some hitting the club and gallery scene. (This was mostly before your pix in 1984).
In 1980 I started a band together with my friend Jim Weisbin (also in „Die Hausfrauen" & "The Slickaphonics") and Richard Edson, who played drums with us, then switched to „Konk“ and later "Sonic Youth“. He became an actor as off „Stranger than Paradise“ by Jim Jarmusch.
In those early years I lived on Elisabeth Street and became friends with Arleen Schloss. We did a series of performance gigs with Richard Edson on bass. Do you remember the series Arleen ran on Wednesdays, together with Todd (Todd’s copy shop). Also involved in A’s was Sandro Dernini, whom I found several times in your photos. He lives back in Rome, still doing Plexus events.
In 1982/83 I was assistant director at Baca’s Downtown Cultural Center on Willoughby Street in Brooklyn, in 1985/86 I became assistant director at Anita Shapolsky Gallery on 99 Spring Street. So I went to a lot of openings and did studio visits, also curated my own shows once a year. Of course Steven Kaplan and Bernd Naber were always around.
In 1986 I went back to the film business and worked as production manager for Austrian TV doing live news broadcasts, but also for Rolando Epstein / Oscar Kramer from Argentina. We produced several awardwinnig films in South America.
As off 1988 I went freelance and have worked as a producer for a lot of European projects in the US and later as 1st A.D. in Germany & the UK. In 2001, just 3 months before 9/11 I moved to Berlin, and in 2005 back to Vienna, where I still produce documentary films of my own.
So that’s the short run of it. I will send you fotos of myself and more detailed info on your contact sheets when I have more time! By the way do you recall the address 270 Water Street? Just under the Brooklyn Bridge in the Seaport? That was my loft, and we had lots of parties back in the days! You may have been there!
Greetings from sunny Vienna,
