Back to the Rivington School

Okay, this is a bit of a weird one. Inspired by Hank O’Neal’s photos from that last post (that's one of his above), I dug up the videos below of The Rivington School.

As I understand it, The Rivington School was technically a loose collective of artists who put up these massive guerilla sculpture gardens, not too different from the old Gas Station on Avenue B. Here's a shot by Toyo Tsuchiya of it circa 1986.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what these first two videos are all about. This first one is the Plexus group having a “deconstruction event” at The Rivington School at some point in 1989.

Keep your eyes out for an appearance by Arto Lindsay of DNA and The Lounge Lizards...

Here’s another from 1986, this one featuring the music of Ritual Tension...

Lastly, here’s another episode of Rik Little’s “The Church of Shooting Yourself.” I wrote a little bit about this program back on this post, but essentially, “The Church of Shooting Yourself” was kind of a proto-video blog (consider Rik Little the evil twin of Nelson Sullivan), which captured the somewhat bug-eyed, largely paranoid ramblings of Little as he traversed downtown Manhattan with his trusty video camera. I don’t know if it was shtick or not, but it frequently made for compelling viewing back in the day.

I’m not sure when this particular clip was shot, but after some frankly disturbing footage of police in riot gear strong-arming and subduing someone, Rik then appears at the remains of the Rivington School’s sculpture garden, and he (kinda) discusses its demise. Once again — if you’re only familiar with these streets from the past fifteen or twenty years, you may not recognize these places at all…..

Comments

[Julius Klein]

Ric Little was important, well respected, and loved by the bygone scene, that was the Rivington School. His energies and talents predated that, and helped to create the enviorment that many a narsisistic ego bully laid claim to.

I can't think of a single journalist, or journalistic approach that equals his total emersion into his subject matter as a producer, cameraman, reporter/comenttarian, subject, that hits his DYI bravery....