The exhibition “Club 57 and Friends” at the Dorian Grey Gallery, is closing this Sunday, October 9^th.

For fans of the period in New York, it is worth checking out before it closes. The small show is a rare opportunity to see some of the ephemeral work of that scene, but it is far from a major representation of work associated with Club 57. Club 57 was a short lived space (circa 1979 to 1983?) on St. Marks Place presided over by Ann Magneson, along with John Sex, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scarf when the latter three were SVA students. At Haring’s invitation, Basquiat showed some work at the club, but found the scene “silly” and to white.

Basquiat’s relation to the Mudd Club and Club 57 are covered in chapter 3 of my book.

At the Dorian Grey gallery, it actually looks like two small shows. Along the left wall of this narrow space, Richard Hamilton is made the star. His shadow figures used to haunt dark corners throughout downtown in the day. There are several of these black splashy silhouettes here on canvas. The real Club 57 denizens are along the right wall, highlighting Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Basquiat is represented by one excellent small drawing titled “warrior,” some very early (High School  period) drawings, his 1984 record cover for The Offs, and three crayon on paper advertisements for a Club 57 art show which are unauthenticated but claimed to be drawn and posted by Basquiat around the club, before an acquaintance of the gallery owner took them down and kept them. They are very unusual, completely unlike anything previously shown of Basquiat’s, but the handwriting on one definitely looks like his. Basquiat is also present in several photos of figures on the scene, and some nice early 1980s photos of his post-SAMO graffiti by Martha Cooper. Also on view are works by Kenny Scharf, Futura 2000, Rene Ricard; photos by Robert Hawkins, Clayton Patterson, and Mark Sink; and others.

Thanks are due the small Dorian Grey Gallery (which previously showcased work by LA II) for putting together this small sample. There are certainly more important things going on in town, such as the Romare Bearden show uptown, the William de Kooning retrospective at MoMA, and the Occupy Wall Street protests downtown. But the rarely exhibited drawings and photos make this interesting for hardcore Basquiat fans. And anyone with fond memories of the Club 57 scene (if they can stand going back to the neighborhood and seeing how it has changed) will get a kick out the show, from the graffiti-covered subway station signs to the little tin-foil sculptures and the smiling portrait photo of the late John Sex.

The Dorian Grey Gallery is at 437 East 9^th St., just off Avenue A. More information here http://www.doriangreygallery.com/

Update: the exhibit is now closed. One day a powerful museum should put together a more definitive look at the early 1980s art in the clubs scene, including performance, videos, and an informative catalog. It better be soon, we have already lost the most important players tragically early, and soon we will be getting to the point where the rest of us start to drop of old age.