On Creating Reality by Andy Kaufman at Maccarone

If you are in New York this evening, I highly recommend attending the opening at Maccarone, On Creating Reality by Andy Kaufman.

January 12 - February 16, 2013

Opening Reception

Saturday January 12, 2013

5:00 - 8:00 PM

Maccarone

630 Greenwich Street, NY, NY

(between Morton and Leroy in the West Village)

This is one of my favorite spaces in New York and I like the shows the owner, Michelle Maccarone, has put on here. I just read an older interview with her in VICE magazine - still worth reading...

I got a sneak peek of the Kaufman show going up last night and it looks really great. The gallery is filled with white table showcases of mixed memorabilia. Here are two shots from the same case I took, Andy Kaufman Plays Carnegie Hall, 1979.

From their press release:

The show presents an extensive collection of ephemera and artifacts from Andy Kaufman's personal and professional life: photographs, correspondence, performance notation, scripts, props and costumes including the original Tony Clifton jacket, record collections, transcendental meditation materials, hand written drafts of his novel "The Huey Williams Story," hundreds of pieces of hate mail he received from women challenging him to wrestle, in addition to numerous personal effects. The exhibition will act as a portrait of an unclassifiable figure in American cultural history whose work has been seminal in the evolution of performance art, new media and relational aesthetics.

In lieu of explanatory text labels accompanying these materials, a rotating series of Kaufman's friends, family, and collaborators will be physically present in the exhibition at all times, for all 25 days that the exhibition is on view, representing the diverse range of relationships, which span Kaufman's life, work, and interests. A central table and chairs within the gallery space will allow these guests to interact and talk with visitors, offering the opportunity for intimate and unscripted conversations about Kaufman with those that knew him, a rare opportunity to engage with primary sources of this particular history.  (read full press release on the Maccarone site)