#stephen varble

[cyborgsmanifest]

[brooklynmuseum]

Throughout the 1970s, Jimmy DeSana created campy portraits of his extended circle of friends and collaborators in New York, which included musicians, filmmakers, writers, artists, critics, and curators. 

Performance artist and fixture of New York City’s downtown scene Stephen Varble, shown here, was one of DeSana’s repeat subjects. DeSana captured many of the performances staged by Varble whose guerilla practices served as commentary on gender identity, class, and capitalism. These performance-based and ephemeral events would continue to inform DeSana’s work in photography throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

📷 Jimmy DeSana (American, 1949–1990). Stephen Varble, 1975. Gelatin silver print, printed later. Courtesy of the Jimmy DeSana Trust and P·P·O·W Gallery, New York. © Estate of Jimmy DeSana. (Photo: Allen Phillips)

[yourdailyqueer]

Stephen Varble (deceased)

Gender: Genderqueer (he/him)

Sexuality: Queer

DOB: Born 1946

RIP:  6 January 1984

Ethnicity: White

Occupation: Performance artist, playwright

Note: Had HIV

[jenniedavis]

[desimonewayland]

Stephen Varble, Flyer for Gutter Art, 1975.

Xerographic print on colored paper.

Courtesy of the Stephen Varble Collection of the Greg Day Archive.

via: one archives

[moodboardmix]

Peter Hujar, "Stephen Varble on Franklin Street ," 1976.

Peter Hujar Archive, LLC. Emily Phoenix. 

[brooklynmuseum]

During the golden age of downtown performance art in the 1970s, Jimmy DeSana documented the work of  numerous artists, sometimes for income. 

In 1975, he photographed public interventions by Stephen Varble, an artist who performed his “Gutter Art” in the streets of Soho and Midtown, while wearing his signature gender-bending ensembles. As the critic Gregory Battcock put it, Varble came to be “considered by some the embarrassment of SoHo, and by others the only touch of real genius south of Houston Street.” DeSana’s photographs of Varble appeared in publications during this time, including General Idea’s FILE Megazine. 

DeSana’s photographs are invaluable records of an ephemeral practice, which has only recently been given its proper due thanks in part to the work of art historian David Getsy. #JimmyDeSanaBkM

📷 Jimmy DeSana (American, 1949–1990). Stephen Varble, 1975. Gelatin silver print. Courtesy of the Jimmy DeSana Trust and P·P·O·W Gallery, New York. © Estate of Jimmy DeSana. (Photo: Allen Phillips)

[jenniedavis]