Nelson Sullivan
Encyclopedia
Nelson Sullivan was a video artist
in New York City
during the 1980’s. He was ubiquitous on the downtown
scene during that decade.
in 1948. His family was upper-middle class, and from an early age he was given music lessons, with an eye toward a career as a classical pianist
. After graduating from Davidson College in North Carolina in 1970, he moved to New York, part of the post-Stonewall
wave of young gay men who were then heading to either San Francisco or Manhattan
to partake of the more liberated lifestyle they had been reading about in newspapers and magazines. He landed a studio apartment in the West Village and soon made a decision to pursue a career as a composer. By days Nelson worked at Patelson's, the famous classical music store behind Carnegie Hall
. He moved from apartment to apartment over the next ten years, never getting one quite large enough to comfortably fit his piano. In 1980, he saw a building on the corner of Gansevoort and 9th Avenue in the Meat Packing District with a For Rent sign on the door. The price was right, and the dilapidated old duplex was soon the center of a unique, revolving universe of friends and scene-makers. It also became a hotel, way-station, and halfway house for people either visiting or moving to the city. Artists, musicians, and performers dropped by at all hours to hang out, and it was this feeling of an ongoing 24-hour salon that gave Sullivan the idea to begin videotaping his life.
-loading camera and later upgrading to an 8mm video camera, he shot over 1,900 hours of tape over a period of seven years, capturing himself and his friends in the glossy façade of Manhattan's downtown life that has been perpetuated in urban legend. He sought to tape all of New York’s citizens, including its outcasts, striving to candidly capture their lives. He taped anything and everything that interested him - outrageous performances in bars and clubs, swinging house parties, chaotic gallery openings, park and street festivals, late-night ruminations of his friends, absurd conversations with taxi drivers, prosaic sunset walks with his dog on the then-still-existing west side piers, and a variety of curious behaviour on the part of people he met on the streets of New York City.
As well as a frequenter of the galleries
, clubs, and bars
of the Lower East Side
and Greenwich Village
, Sullivan was on the periphery of the Warhol crowd's later incarnations, headquartered a bit further north at 17th and Broadway, and at Max's Kansas City
on Park Avenue South. He counted among his friends a variety of that scene's characters, such as Andy's young friend Benjamin Liu, singer Joey Arias
, fashion designer Alexis Del Lago, and actress Sylvia Miles
. All of these, with the exception of Miles, were to one degree or another drag queens. In fact, Sullivan's fascination with his friends' crossdressing was to become a leitmotif
of his work. That can be seen in the footage of Guy Bernotas' 1982 production of Momma Said, entirely shot by Nelson. In the late '80s, Sullivan cultivated a "factory" of his own at 5 Ninth Avenue, a three-story former carriage house in the heart of New York's Meatpacking
district
. With a cast that included Superstar RuPaul
, DJ Larry Tee
, Lahoma Van Zant, Lady Bunny
, Michael Musto
, artist Albert Crudo and a bevy of other colorful characters making cameo appearances, it was the epi-center of a creative revolution.
A prolific videographer, Sullivan's revolutionary style is a combination of cinematic and in-camera editing techniques. His technique was so fluid that viewers would often see Sullivan walk across the screen and wonder who was pointing the camera.
Sullivan knew he lived in interesting times, and he worked hard to capture more than a video freak-show. He chronicled the rise and fall of many of his friends and peers including, Ethyl Eichelberger
, John Sex
, Keith Haring
, Tom Rubnitz, Michael Alig
and countless other denizens of a demimonde being ravaged by AIDS
, heroin, and anomie
. Sullivan himself died from a heart attack on July 4, 1989, just three days after quitting his full-time job to so that he could produce his own cable television show of his footage.
Sullivan's video archives are currently stored in Atlanta, Georgia
with his childhood friend, Richard N. Richards.
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
during the 1980’s. He was ubiquitous on the downtown
Downtown
Downtown is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's core or central business district ....
scene during that decade.
Early life
Sullivan was born in Kershaw, South CarolinaKershaw, South Carolina
Kershaw, incorporated in 1888, is a town in Lancaster County, South Carolina, United States and part of Kershaw County, South Carolina, United States...
in 1948. His family was upper-middle class, and from an early age he was given music lessons, with an eye toward a career as a classical pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
. After graduating from Davidson College in North Carolina in 1970, he moved to New York, part of the post-Stonewall
Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City...
wave of young gay men who were then heading to either San Francisco or Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
to partake of the more liberated lifestyle they had been reading about in newspapers and magazines. He landed a studio apartment in the West Village and soon made a decision to pursue a career as a composer. By days Nelson worked at Patelson's, the famous classical music store behind Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
. He moved from apartment to apartment over the next ten years, never getting one quite large enough to comfortably fit his piano. In 1980, he saw a building on the corner of Gansevoort and 9th Avenue in the Meat Packing District with a For Rent sign on the door. The price was right, and the dilapidated old duplex was soon the center of a unique, revolving universe of friends and scene-makers. It also became a hotel, way-station, and halfway house for people either visiting or moving to the city. Artists, musicians, and performers dropped by at all hours to hang out, and it was this feeling of an ongoing 24-hour salon that gave Sullivan the idea to begin videotaping his life.
Videographer
Like many in the early 1980s, Sullivan recognized an unlimited potential in the advent of the new inexpensive handheld video cameras then coming on the market. Using first a cumbersome VHSVHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
-loading camera and later upgrading to an 8mm video camera, he shot over 1,900 hours of tape over a period of seven years, capturing himself and his friends in the glossy façade of Manhattan's downtown life that has been perpetuated in urban legend. He sought to tape all of New York’s citizens, including its outcasts, striving to candidly capture their lives. He taped anything and everything that interested him - outrageous performances in bars and clubs, swinging house parties, chaotic gallery openings, park and street festivals, late-night ruminations of his friends, absurd conversations with taxi drivers, prosaic sunset walks with his dog on the then-still-existing west side piers, and a variety of curious behaviour on the part of people he met on the streets of New York City.
As well as a frequenter of the galleries
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
, clubs, and bars
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
of the Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
and Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, Sullivan was on the periphery of the Warhol crowd's later incarnations, headquartered a bit further north at 17th and Broadway, and at Max's Kansas City
Max's Kansas City
Max's Kansas City was a nightclub and restaurant at 213 Park Avenue South, in New York City, which was a gathering spot for musicians, poets, artists and politicians in the 1960s and 1970s.-Origin of name:...
on Park Avenue South. He counted among his friends a variety of that scene's characters, such as Andy's young friend Benjamin Liu, singer Joey Arias
Joey Arias
Joey Arias is a New York City based performance artist, cabaret singer, and drag artist.Born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, he was six when he moved with his family to Los Angeles. After singing with the rock band "Purlie" on Capitol Records and a stint with famed improvisational group the...
, fashion designer Alexis Del Lago, and actress Sylvia Miles
Sylvia Miles
-Early life and career:Miles was born Sylvia Reuben Lee in New York City, the daughter of Belle and Reuben Lee, a furniture maker....
. All of these, with the exception of Miles, were to one degree or another drag queens. In fact, Sullivan's fascination with his friends' crossdressing was to become a leitmotif
Leitmotif
A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...
of his work. That can be seen in the footage of Guy Bernotas' 1982 production of Momma Said, entirely shot by Nelson. In the late '80s, Sullivan cultivated a "factory" of his own at 5 Ninth Avenue, a three-story former carriage house in the heart of New York's Meatpacking
district
Meatpacking District, Manhattan
The Meatpacking District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan which runs roughly from West 14th Street south to Gansevoort Street, and from the Hudson River east to Hudson Street, although recently it is sometimes considered to have extended north to West 16th Street and east...
. With a cast that included Superstar RuPaul
RuPaul
RuPaul Andre Charles , best known as simply RuPaul, is an American actor, drag queen, model, author, and singer-songwriter, who first became widely known in the 1990s when he appeared in a wide variety of television programs, films, and musical albums. Previously, he was a fixture on the Atlanta...
, DJ Larry Tee
Larry Tee
Larry Tee is a New York City-based DJ, club promoter, and music producer who coined the musical genre term Electroclash and helped launch the careers of such artists as RuPaul, Scissor Sisters, Fischerspooner, Peaches, W.I.T., and Avenue D, and has collaborated with Amanda Lepore and Princess...
, Lahoma Van Zant, Lady Bunny
Lady Bunny
The Lady Bunny is an American drag queen originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee, who has lived in New York since the 1980s. She is the founder of the annual Wigstock event and is well-known as a nightclub DJ, promoter and celebrity...
, Michael Musto
Michael Musto
Michael Musto is an American columnist for the The Village Voice, where he writes La Dolce Musto. Musto was born in Brooklyn to an Italian American family. He attended Columbia University graduating in 1976. During his studies, he was a theater critic for the Columbia Spectator...
, artist Albert Crudo and a bevy of other colorful characters making cameo appearances, it was the epi-center of a creative revolution.
A prolific videographer, Sullivan's revolutionary style is a combination of cinematic and in-camera editing techniques. His technique was so fluid that viewers would often see Sullivan walk across the screen and wonder who was pointing the camera.
Sullivan knew he lived in interesting times, and he worked hard to capture more than a video freak-show. He chronicled the rise and fall of many of his friends and peers including, Ethyl Eichelberger
Ethyl Eichelberger
Ethyl Eichelberger was an American drag performer, playwright, and actor. He became an influential figure in experimental theater and writing, and performed nearly forty plays...
, John Sex
John Sex
John McLaughlin , better known as "John Sex" was a cabaret singer and performance artist in New York City from the late 1970s until his death.-Early life:...
, Keith Haring
Keith Haring
Keith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
, Tom Rubnitz, Michael Alig
Michael Alig
Michael Alig is the co-founding member of the Club Kids, a group of young clubgoers led by long time best friend James St. James and Alig in the late 1980s and early 1990s...
and countless other denizens of a demimonde being ravaged by AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
, heroin, and anomie
Anomie
Anomie is a term meaning "without Law" to describe a lack of social norms; "normlessness". It describes the breakdown of social bonds between an individual and their community ties, with fragmentation of social identity and rejection of self-regulatory values. It was popularized by French...
. Sullivan himself died from a heart attack on July 4, 1989, just three days after quitting his full-time job to so that he could produce his own cable television show of his footage.
Sullivan's video archives are currently stored in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
with his childhood friend, Richard N. Richards.