The downtown art scene of the 80s in New York launched the careers of artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat And Keith Haring to fame and fortune. But for every well-known success story, how many other budding art stars have become mere footnotes in the annals of art history, if anyone can remember?
Neo-expressionist painter Edward Brezinski was one of those forgotten figures, until director Brian Vincent and producer Heather Spore (a husband and wife duo) chose him as the subject of the new documentary. make me famousthe couple’s first feature film.
The film combines archival footage – both of Brezinski, courtesy of videographer Jim C, and more famous figures including Basquiat, Haring and Andy Warhol— with interviews with artists and dealers who knew Brezinski from when he lived in a decrepit sixth-floor ground floor on East 3rd Street, across from a men’s shelter.
Handsome and ubiquitous in the tight-knit downtown arts community, Brezinski unabashedly promoted himself in his ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of success in the art world. He is perhaps best remembered for handing out flyers for group shows in his apartment, dubbed the Magic Gallery, at other people’s openings.
Williams and Spore don’t try to portray Brezinski as an unsung genius, although the film clearly appreciates his work. Instead, make me famous highlights how a mix of pity, affection and exasperation define the memories of those who knew him.
One person described Brezinski as “just a goofy boob”. Many complained about his excessive drinking. Everyone recognized his unfailing dedication to his profession. (He was a bit of a perfectionist, sometimes wiping or destroying a portrait before a model could even see it.)
“He was such a reject. If he didn’t paint, he would be in an asylum”, artist David McDermottBrezinski’s former lover, said.
Painting by Edouard Brezinski. Photo © Jonathan Postal.
Most talking heads, including actor Eric Bogosian and artists such as Kenny Scharf, Marc Kostabi, Duncan HannahAnd Richard Hambleton– can’t get used to the idea that they’re here to talk about Brezinski. (That goes for his family, too, found in Michigan.)
Brezinski’s death in 2007 was announced only by a small article in the old Artnet magazinewritten by the publication’s editor, the artist walter robinson (another interviewee from the film). Just 99 words long, this short disclaimer becomes pivotal in the film’s narrative. It chronicles the few highlights of Brezinski’s career, including the time he fell ill from eating a formaldehyde-treated donut that was actually part of a Robert Gober sculpture at a Paula Cooper vernissage in 1989 – and provides the only known details of the circumstances of her death.
The artists Marguerite Van Cook And James Rombergerwho gave Brezinski several shows at their Ground Zero Gallery, received the call from France in 2007. Authorities had found Brezinski’s body, with the couple’s phone number in his pocket. Van Cook and Romberger then accompanied the filmmakers to the French Riviera, in search of the artist’s grave and his elusive death certificate.
A work of Edward Brezinski. ©Edward Brezinski.
There are also growing suspicions that Brezinski may have faked his own death, perhaps in a last ditch bid for the fame that had eluded him.
Watching his peers’ careers take off, their talents recognized and rewarded while his own stagnated, was undeniably difficult for Brezinski.
“Everyone kind of started on the street”, the painter Frank Holiday said in the movie. “And then some people had a lot of success, and it got very hierarchical.”
Brezinski is not always sympathetic. In one particularly memorable segment, the dealership Annina Nosei (who discovered Basquiat) remembers Brezinski throwing a glass of wine in his face at a Tony Shafrazi gallery opening after he failed to keep an appointment to visit the studio.
Frank Holiday in make me famous.
And when Brezinski ate Gober’s donut, he said Page 6 that he was drunk and hungry and had mistaken the sculpture for real food. But interviewees in the film told a different story, about a struggling painter disgusted by what he saw as the undeserved success of an artist trying to pass off the dessert as an $8,000 work of art. (In March, bag of donuts sold at Sotheby’s New York for $127,000.)
Shortly after the donut incident, Brezinski left New York, moved to Berlin, and lost contact with his inner-city compatriots. By all accounts, he continued to struggle and lived in a squat. McDermott shared a heartbreaking letter with the filmmakers in which Brezinski asked for money. He regretted his decision not to donate. It was their last correspondence.
A scene from make me famous.
But while the work of many unknown artists is often destined for the trash, the filmmakers were fortunate that Brezinski had a devoted collector, a server named Lenny Kisko who has safeguarded the artist’s archive and much of his work over the past 30 years. (When Kisko met Vincent at a catering gig and learned of his interest in the 1980s art world, Kisko insisted on showing the director his collection, which gave Vincent the idea for the film.)
The film takes Brezinski as a lens through which to explore the era and its transformation from a hotbed of creativity with bustling nightlife into a thriving commercial market for art. He also questions the factors that allowed some artists to break through, while so many others, like Brezinski, continued to toil in obscurity. In a way, the film could be one of those stories of forgotten artists.
Whether make me famous Will Brezinski’s legacy change remains to be seen, but his role in the ’80s art scene may finally be recognized. In 2017, during filming, two of his works were part of the Club 57 show At modern Art Museum celebrating a popular underground art venue in St. Mark’s Square – a moment Brezinski would surely have enjoyed.
make me famous is screened with a Q&A with the filmmakers at New Plaza Cinema at Macaulay Honors College, 35 West 67th Street, New York, New York on July 22, 2023 at 5 p.m.; and at the Roxy Cinema, 2 Avenue of the Americas, Tribeca, New York, July 23, 2023 at 7:15 p.m.
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