by Éditions 1989

Who Are You Dorothy Dean?
Dorothy Dean
Éditions 1989 - 21.00€ -  out of stock

The first book devoted to the late African American writer and actress, Dorothy Dean, one of the few prominent African American women of New York City's bohemian heyday, close to Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe.

This second release from Éditions 1989 features Dorothy Dean's unpublished writing and selected correspondence with Edie Sedgwick, Rene Ricard, and Taylor Mead, among other friends and artists. This volume also includes Dean's transcendent script of an unrealized film starring Factory actor, Ondine.

Lyrical, humorous, political, and brutally honest, Who Are You Dorothy Dean? is a tribute to one of the few prominent African American women of New York City's bohemian heyday.

Dorothy Dean (1932-1987) was an African American writer and actress. She entered the 1960s New York underground scene and quickly became one of its key, if overlooked, figures, starring in six of Andy Warhol's films and inspiring the likes of Robert Mapplethorpe and Robert Creeley. Presumably the first woman ever hired as fact-checker at The New Yorker, Dean held brief editorial and proofreading positions at publications such as Vogue before launching her very own bulletin of film reviews, the All-Lavender Cinema Courier, in 1976.

Edited by Anaïs Ngbanzo.
Texts by Dorothy Dean, Edie Sedgwick, Robert Creeley, Gerard Malanga, Rene Ricard, Taylor Mead, et al.
Translated from the English (American) by Rachel Valinsky.

Gay Guerrilla – L'histoire de Julius Eastman
Julius Eastman
Éditions 1989 - 21.00€ -  out of stock

A collection of biographical and musical essays about composer-performer Julius Eastman—a compelling portrait of Eastman's enigmatic and intriguing life and music.

Julius Eastman—composer, pianist and singer—began his professional journey at Ithaca College in New York State. Braving adversity penniless, yet with a few compositions in hand, in the 1970s he joined the experimental downtown New York music scene, collaborating with John Cage, Arthur Russell, Meredith Monk and Peter Maxwell Davies. In 1990, after seven years of "voluntary martyrdom" amidst psychotropic drugs and homeless wanderings, Eastman died and fell into obscurity. 

African-American, Eastman used his art throughout his life as a shield against the racial tensions dividing the United States, selecting titles for his compositions (Evil Nigger; Crazy Nigger) to shake up morals. Partly inspired by Patti Smith and her anthem Rock N Roll Nigger, these controversial titles were meant to honor Africans for their importance in the history of building the American economy, and constitute one of the singularities of his work.

Gay Guerrilla : l'histoire de Julius Eastman is the first French-language book devoted to the artist. From The New Yorker to the New York Times, posthumous praise for the composer reigns today, recognizing him as an iconic figure in the history of America's avant-garde.

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