>>> Ed Templeton
>>> The Golden Age of Neglect
>>> Alleged Art Gallery, Manhattan
Drunken Art Fags in the big city.
Camera: Seth Butler
> Three days without sleep and two hours behind schedule the Journal team made out for New York City. We had pieced together the first issue at around 12:30 the night before and raced to Kinkos to print it out. An hour later we were off to Staples due to the fact that Kinkos wanted 300 dollars to print out about three hundred issues by the next morning. At 2:OO AM we arrived at Staples and finished about 300 issues ourselves. It was now 7:00 AM and the sun was out. We all had to attend morning classes in an hour and then make the three-hour drive to Manhattan. The team drove home and got about two hours of sleep. We then did similar routines of coffee and class, only fall asleep again. When the last of us was ready we gassed up the car and headed out to NYC, a three-hour drive but we were an hour and a half behind schedule. The drive was long and scenic. We raced through tollbooths without paying and ended up somewhere in NY at around 7:45 PM. The show was going to end at 9:00 and we raced through the savage city, through the gang ridden streets of Harlem, and finally past Times Square.
Portrait of Ed's Wife.
Camera: Seth Butler
Section of the Giant Sketchbook Ed fashioned minutes before the opening.
Camera: Seth Butler
> On arrival I was amazed at the attendance. Before me stood Harold Hunter, an odd fellow that seemed to have been brain washed into thinking he was some type of famous rap star. R.E.M's Michael Stipe viewed the work and eventually left with a few original Templeton's. Also in attendance were none other than Arto Sari, Geoff Rowley (the Tony Hawk Pro Skater legend himself) and of course Ed among many others. I entered the building with my colleagues; a tired and malnourished group that wandered around and socialized with the crowd before taking in the art.It was unlike any other opening I had been to before. Kids sat out side drinking malt liquor, and a fat drunken man got naked inside the gallery. I was amazed at the New York Sub Culture that I had never been exposed to before. I myself wanted a 40 oz and wished that I were popular enough to get naked amongst the crowd. My fellow colleagues then hastened me outside for the distribution of the journal to the perverse crowd.
Artwork framed by Artwork? Vinni Raffa puts on an exhibition of his own.
Camera: Leonard Greco> As the crowd filtered out the doors of Alleged I got a chance to really look at Ed's work. There was an overwhelming amount of artwork shown. The walls, which were plastered with photos, drawings and paintings, resembled a giant sketchbook. The work revolved more around the content of the images than the artistic merit (whatever that is these days). The content followed themes: teenage smokers, friends, bad kids, screwed up world, etc. A portion of the show was shared with artist Bruce La Bruce. Bruce contributed what appeared to be documentary of gay skinhead pornography. When I tried to take this portion of the exhibition seriously I couldn't. As an art student I thought that it was mostly perverse and only set up as a shock factor to draw attention from the outside world (note: shock value is a dead end). On the other hand the photography, doodles, and paintings were very representational for the experiences of a man who is a self proclaimed art fag. His work reminds me of neglected teenage life in Southern California. The works titled Teenage Smokers summed everything up pretty well.
"I'm not an art fag or nothin' like that..."-Goeff Rowley comments on Ed's work.
Camera: Michael Nevin
> Looking back, the experience was overwhelming. We had managed to stay up for three days straight and debut our first issue of The Journal. We worked as a team and worked our way through endless problems and glitches that arouse in our final rush to gain support from the outside world. After we left Alleged Gallery we bought some well needed 40's to finish our trip. When you haven't really eaten or slept for three days you get shit faced fast.
