Ackers are back: The third installation of the Acker Awards, recognizing avant-garde artists and luminaries who have defied convention, is set for Thurs., March 17, at HOWL! Happening gallery, 6 E. First St., from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Free and open to the public, it’s presented by Clayton Patterson and emceed by Phoebe Legere, who was an Acker winner last year, and co-sponsored by The Villager and Overthrow boxing. This year, for the first time, there will also be a full slate of posthumous honorees, from Taylor Mead and Tuli Kupferberg to Grady Alexis, John Evans, Vali Myers, Hanz Penza and many more. L.E.S. documentarian Patterson co-created the Acker Awards with writer Alan Kaufman. We attended last year’s event, at Lorcan Otway’s Theatre 80 on St. Mark’s Place, and it was great. “It’s at the HOWL! space this year, which is perfect,” Patterson said. “There’s a lot of overlap there.” As for how the idea of adding the posthumous Ackers came up, Patterson said, “Zito and I were sitting around and talking about the Ackers. I’m not sure who mentioned the posthumous — but he said, ‘I’ll paint them.’ ” The Acker Awards are named after novelist Kathy Acker, who in her life and work exemplified the risk-taking and uncompromising dedication that identifies the true avant-garde artist. Each recipient will receive a commemorative box that contains original artworks and mementos created by some of the 40 winners. A big shout-out to Michael Shirey, The Villager’s art director, who is putting together the event’s 46-page program booklet, a real collector’s item. On a personal note, Patterson and his wife, Elsa Rensaa, of course, still have not moved to Austria, as he had said he was planning to do a few years ago. Patterson will be going to Austria briefly this week for a few days, but it’s just one of his regular trips there, where he is involved in a tattoo convention and wild sideshow event, among other projects. In addition to everything involved in pulling up stakes on the Lower East Side and making such a big move, Rensaa’s health is also an issue. “You know, there’s a lot going on,” Patterson said.
Sheer ‘genius’: Speaking of HOWL! Happening gallery, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth of the Tom Tom Club were there Saturday night for the opening of the Arturo Vega “Insults” show. Their much-sampled early ’80s smash hit “Genius of Love” can be heard covered by Tinashe in Target’s current TV ad campaign.
Hey! Ho! Ramones show! Also at the Vega show, PUNK magazine’s John Holmstrom told us he’s busy working on a map that will note everywhere the Ramones played in the New York area, which will be for sale at the upcoming Ramones show at the Queens Museum, pegged to the 40th anniversary of the band’s classic self-titled first album. The exhibit, “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk,” debuts April 10 at the Queens Museum and will then move to Los Angeles for a second opening Sept. 16 at the GRAMMY Museum. “The Ramones represent a resistance to the status quo and so many of the artists who they influenced — and who they were influenced by — embody that same ideal,” said Laura Raicovich, the Queens Museum’s president and C.E.O. “As an institution, we are thrilled to explore the nexus of art and the Ramones, from their roots in Queens to the international diaspora of punk.” Added U2’s Bono, “The Ramones were the best band ever, because they actually invented something. They talked like they walked like they sounded onstage. Everything added up. Watching them live and hearing Joey sing, I realized that there was nothing else that mattered to him…and pretty soon nothing else mattered to me.” The exhibit will be organized under themes — places, events, songs and artists — and include materials by the likes of Arturo Vega, who, along with the Ramones, designed the band’s famous logo; Sergio Aragones, the Mad magazine cartoonist; Holmstrom; Shepard Fairey, and Yoshitomo Nara, who, for this exhibit, has created a large-scale version of one of his paintings of his recurring character Ramona, whom he named in homage to the Ramones. Also included are contributions from the personal collections of Mickey Leigh, Joey Ramone’s brother and the Ramones’ original stage manager; and Linda Ramone, Johnny Ramone’s wife; plus works from well-known local rock photographers Roberta Bayley, who shot the first Ramones album cover, Bob Gruen and Godlis, along with Danny Fields, the Ramones’ first manager, Monte A. Melnick, the Ramones’ tour manager, and others intimately involved with the group throughout their career. Additional artifacts will also include personal memorabilia, such as clothing and instruments. And don’t forget Holmstrom’s map!
Jaco and the jocks: Since this week’s column is all about the arts and music, here’s a tidbit from Carl Hultberg, whose collection of writings about Downtown’s “Eco ’80s” Bill Weinberg reports on in this week’s Villager. Hultberg, a core member of the former Village Green recycling operation at W. Fourth St. and Sixth Ave., said Jaco Pastorius, the talented but troubled bass virtuoso, used to hang out around the center. “I never really knew who he was,” Hultberg told us. “He seemed so strung out most of the time, so I probably didn’t care. We had a lot of characters down there back then. It was 1987. He used to borrow our broom to clean up the basketball courts. He’d break up the local games with his clowning and I’d wonder why they let him do that. One day he asked me if I knew who he was. I said, No, who was he? He said he was Jaco f—ing Pastorius, and I just said, ‘Sure, and I’m Louis Armstrong.’ I used to call him Havlicek because he was the only white guy over there, mostly,” he said, referring to the Celtics ’60s great. “One day I saw him out in the park with a Fender jazz bass and a little Pignose battery-powered amp. He was playing Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Third Stone From the Sun’ in harmonics. I said, Wow, he really is Jaco Pastorius. A few weeks later, he was dead.”
Corrections: Last week’s Villager article “City goes for the fences to increase parks access” stated that the Jane St. Garden will be getting a new gate, but in fact it will be getting whole new fence, which, presumably, also includes a new gate. Also, the article incorrectly stated that the new park at the St. Vincent’s Triangle is privately owned but maintained by the city’s Parks Department. Indeed, Rudin Management’s original intention was to create a “publicly accessible” open space on private land. However, as a result of the insistence of Community Board 2, the land was instead turned over to the Parks Department and is now under that agency’s jurisdiction. However, the park is maintained by the new Rudin condominium across the street under an agreement with the Parks Department.
