CRISPERANTO: THE QUENTIN CRISP ARCHIVES



In partnership with Phillip Ward
and Crisperanto: The Quentin Crisp Archives,
the Museum of Arts and Design presents:

REMEMBERING QUENTIN CRISP


Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 3:00 pm
FREE in The Theater at MAD


Museum of Arts and Design
2 Columbus Circle
New York, NY 10019

info@madmuseum.org
212-299-7777

Phillip Ward, Quentin Crisp’s literary and estate executor, visits MAD to provide an in-depth lecture on the significance of Crisp’s life and legacy. By providing personal stories and insights along with a selection of rarely seen photographs from the archives, Mr. Ward offers a unique chance to learn about the legendary Crisp by those who knew him best.

The lecture is followed by a short film by Mr. Ward titled “Quentin Crisp In A Time Gone By”, and then a Q&A session with the audience, hosted by a panel led by Brian DeShazor of Pacifica Radio Archives. The panel members are James Adler, Taylor Black, Thomas Keith, Guy Kettelhack, Tom Steele, and Phillip Ward.

MEET THE PANEL


Mr. Adler with Mr. Crisp and opera singer Rita Hunter, 1991.
JAMES ADLER is a pianist who “can create whatever type of music he wants at the keyboard” (Chicago Sun-Times) and a composer who writes “with uncommon imagination” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution). He made his orchestral performing debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age 16 and has appeared from London's Royal Albert Hall to New York's Paramount Theatre, Carnegie Hall, and Alice Tully Hall; and in festivals from Greece to Chicago. He is recorded on the Albany, Capstone, Navona, and Ravello Records labels; his most recent CD, "James Adler & Friends," was released in February. He is the composer of Memento mori: An AIDS Requiem (Albany Records), featuring two poems which were given to Mr. Adler by Quentin Crisp after a friendship that began in London, 1978.






TAYLOR BLACK is New York City’s resident professional failure, style icon, and revelator. Having already pre-deceased himself, Taylor Black is the future of Quentin Crisp. He is a PhD Candidate at Rutgers University, working to complete his dissertation, Time Out Of Mind: Style and the Art of Becoming. Mr. Black's academic writings are all highly indebted to Quentin Crisp and deploy his thoughts and theories on style and creative overcoming in every move they make. These articles and essays can be found in American Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Popular Music Studies, Discourse and Women's Studies Quarterly. He also regularly contributes to PrettyQueer.com and, with Elena Glasberg, is one half of the blog Junebug vs. Hurricane.






BRIAN DESHAZOR is the Director of the Pacifica Radio Archives, the oldest collection of public radio programming in the U.S., and is an award winning public radio producer. And along with the archives, Mr. DeShazor is recipient of the prestigious Bader Award given to one awardee each year by the National Federation of Community Broadcasters for a single stunning innovation or a lifetime of vital contributions to Community Radio. He currently is producer and host of the national radio series, From the Vault. (Fromthevaultradio.org) For the past 17 years, Mr. DeShazor has worked to rescue historically valuable recordings and make them accessible to academia and the general public. He recently launched the Pacifica Radio Archives LGBT preservation and access project. Mr. DeShazor’s first radio production and first award of over 500 programs was the 1999 “Quentin Crisp Memorial Program”, also known as “An Evening for Quentin Crisp”.



THOMAS KEITH is a writer and teacher. He has been involved in the preparation and editing of over a dozen titles by Tennessee Williams for New Directions Publishing along with Williams's collected poetry, essays, three collections of one-acts, and he wrote the introduction for A House Not Meant to Stand. He has recently edited a collection of original essays by LGBT writers, Love, Christopher Street: Reflections of New York City. Keith is also an adjunct professor in the Performing Arts Department at Pace University and is consulting editor at New Directions Publishing. As friend to Quentin Crisp, he assisted Mr. Crisp as editor on various projects.









GUY KETTELHACK is the author or co-author of more than 25 nonfiction books. Among his solo efforts: "Easing the Ache", "Dancing Around the Volcano", "The Wit and Wisdom of Quentin Crisp", the Hazelden recovery book series, "First Year Sobriety", "Second Year Sobriety" and "Third Year Sobriety". His poems have appeared online and in print in a variety of venues and quarterlies. His drawings were featured in two art shows at the gallery at New World Stages in New York in 2012. Mr. Kettelhack was, with Connie Clausen, one of Mr. Crisp's American literary agents from 1982 to 1989; appeared in "Resident Alien" (1990), a film about Mr. Crisp's life in New York; and wrote the foreword to Nigel Kelly's biography "The Profession of Being: Quentin Crisp" (2010). He is a graduate of Middlebury College.






TOM STEELE was editor at Christopher Street and the New York Native for eighteen years. He was founding editor of TheaterWeek and Opera Monthly. Mr. Steele employed Mr. Crisp to write many features, interviews, and reviews, as well as to keep a weekly diary, for those publications, some of which eventually became the book Resident Alien. Mr. Steele and Mr. Crisp became close friends, and they regularly attended movies and dined together. Currently, Mr. Steele covers New York’s arts and entertainment for Fodor's Travel Publications, reviews restaurants for various publications and Web sites, writes cookbooks, and has ghost-written and collaborated on dozens of other books. He has covered the New York arts, entertainment, and especially the restaurant scenes for Fodor’s travel publications, and has written copiously for Out magazine, Our Town, and West Side Spirit, as well as for fodors.com and out.com. He has written dining features for Time Out/NY



.
PHILLIP WARD is a consultant and researcher, curator, multimedia artist, poet, and writer. His writings and photographs have appeared in an array of magazines, journals, books, and Internet, including group exhibitions in New York and Japan. Mr. Ward was Quentin Crisp’s personal assistant, dresser, typist, and travel companion during the 1980s and until Mr. Crisp’s death in 1999. As literary and estate executor for Quentin Crisp, he organized and produced the memorial “An Evening for Quentin Crisp” at Cooper Union’s Great Hall on March 3, 2000 and co-edited "Quentin Crisp 1908-1999", the memorial tribute book. He is archivist and curator of Crisperanto: The Quentin Crisp Archives and editor of Quentin Crisp’s unpublished final book, The Dusty Answers (working title).







REMEMBERING QUENTIN CRISP is one of three summer events that's part of The Museum of Arts and Design’s program LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MR. QUENTIN CRISP. It all begins Friday, June 14, at 6 PM, and runs every Friday until September 6 (except July 4 weekend) in The Theater at MAD. Free with Pay-What-You-Wish Admission. Visit MAD here for more information.

MAD’s July event is THE SECOND COMING OF QUENTIN CRISP and is a Happening to celebrate Style and an opportunity to overrun MAD with a multitude of Quentin Crisp stylists! This unique happening offers visitors the opportunity to chat, laugh, and strut among a crowd inspired by Crisp’s life and work as the museum turns into a makeshift dandy salon. Come dressed as Crisp, or express your own personal sense of style, as you are surrounded by artists who will sketch, photograph, and celebrate the art of being in all its multifaceted glory. This event takes place on Saturday, July 27, 2013 on the 6th floor at 1:00 PM. Free with Museum Admission.

MAD's August event is the film AN EVENING WITH PENNY ARCADE AND QUENTIN CRISP. Penny Arcade, the legendary performance artist, Lower East Side icon, and personal friend of Quentin Crisp, presents a never-before-screened onstage conversation with Crisp. Filmed in 1995 as part of the Vienna Festival, this two-hour dialog between friends and confidantes has Crisp reflect on the meaning of life, and much more. The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with Penny Arcade and filmmaker Steve Zehentner. This event takes place on Thursday, August 15, 2013 at 7:00 PM at The Theater at MAD. Free with Pay-What-You-Wish Admission.


REMEMBERING QUENTIN CRISP
Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 3:00 pm
Free, The Theater at MAD





LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MR. QUENTIN CRISP
begins Friday, June 14, at 6 PM until September 6 (except July 4 weekend)
Free with Pay-What-You-Wish Admission, The Theater at MAD

A unique raconteur and streetwise intellectual, the flamboyant 20th century dandy Quentin Crisp used himself as material in a lifetime of activity that broke boundaries of social norms in his pursuit of personal expression and persona as art form. Emerging from the post-war England gay rent-boy subculture, Crisp produced a series of books, most notably his 1968 autobiography THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT, which paved the way for open public discourse about homosexuality, androgyny, and personal style during the dawn of the gay-rights movement. Immigrating to NYC at the age of 72, Crisp began a series of one-man live shows comprising one part lecture and one part Q&A session. Through these performances, as well as additional writings and media appearances, Crisp crafted a new approach to style and being as personal art form.

Celebrating the influence and works of this singular artistic voice, the Museum of Arts and Design presents the cinema series LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MR. QUENTIN CRISP. Including cinema screenings, panel discussions, and live acts of style, this series makes use of cinema not only as method of documentation, but also as a force for the archiving, contextualization, and presentation of the unique art form known as the act of being.

MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN
2 Columbus Circle
New York, NY 10019
info@madmuseum.org
212-299-7777

More informaiton here.



Photograph of Quentin Crisp copyrighted © by Jean Harvey. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Photograph of James Adler with Mr. Crisp and Rita Hunter is by John Ostendorf and courtesy of Mr. Adler.
Photographs of Taylor Black and Brian DeShazor copyrighted © by Phillip Ward. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Photograph of Thomas Keith with Mr. Crisp is by Miam Davidson and courtesy of Mr. Keith..
Photographer of Guy Kettelhack and Mr. Crisp is unknown and is from Mr. Crisp's personal collection of photographs. Courtesy of Phillip Ward.
Photograph of Tom Steele and Mr. Crisp copyrighted © by Raymond Luczak. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Photograph of Phillip Ward and Mr. Crisp is by Jim Tamulis and copyrighted © by Phillip Ward. All rights reserved. Used by permission.






Site Copyright © 1999–2013 by the Quentin Crisp Archives.
All rights reserved.