Art Stars is a group of experimental performers, comedians, poets, storytellers, musicians, and performance artists located in and around New York's Lower East Side. Appropriated by the New York Lower East Side open mic performance scene, the term "Art Star" was first coined by Andy Warhol. As used by local performers like the Rev. Jen Miller in the mid-1990s, the term came to be used in that community as a tongue-in-cheek way to embody a non-competitive attitude (in which all artists/performers/participants are declared to be "Art Stars") shared among these performers in an otherwise competitive New York art and performance scene.
Long-running Art Star variety shows- such as Miller's Anti-Slam, Faceboyz Open Mic, Grindhouse-A-Go-Go!, Toilet, Rocket to Vaudeville, Night of 1000 Jennifers and, more recently, Sabelli's Underground Open Mic at Under St. Mark's Theater, have been a mainstay of some of New York's better known alternative art and performance venues such as Collective:Unconscious, the now-defunct Surf Reality, and Bob Holman's Bowery Poetry Club. In addition to the self-published Art Star Scene Magazine, the scene has been profiled in The Village Voice, Time Out New York ("Geek Chorus," front cover, Issue 569: August 24–30, 2006) and The New York Press.
One notable performer at Art Star events was Margaret Trigg (1964–2003), who starred in ABC's Aliens in the Family, a 1996 Jim Henson Studios production. A classic beauty, she played both to and against type, very much the beauty on television, but often all but unrecognizable in her Art Star performances. Her spontaneous performances at Faceboyz Open Mic, which frequently closed the show, hours past midnight, were notable for their improvisational daring and audience interplay. Her scripted pieces tended to be monologues in character, deeply nuanced pieces that often veered from comedy to tragedy, similar to the early work of Whoopi Goldberg, but drawing on the characters from her own Central Texas roots, male and female. She was profiled in New York Magazine shortly after her death, focusing on her obsession with plastic surgery. Her death at 39 was attributed to the long-term effects of amphetamine use, connected to eating disorders.
Other notable members, past and present, of the Art Star community include hosts of the popular podcast Keith and The Girl (Keith Malley & Chemda Khalili); performers Bruce Smolanoff, Jim Melloan, John King the Lower East Side's Minister of Information, Abby Hertz, Amy Pacheco, Mike Raphone, Trav S.D., Lori Mocha, Master Lee, Mike Amato, Clara Belle, Walter Gambine, Legal Alien, Dave Ritz, Jeff Mac, George Courtney, Francis James, Black Ops Bob, CCJohn, Ace Cat, Sara Delphine, Ana Montana, Laruocco, Tom Nevin, Gerber, Q Man, David Leopold, Leonard Bin-Meyer, Joseph, Moonshine, Billy Idol Junior, Lopi LaRue, Noble Savage, Sarah Fisch, Leticia Veloria, Rick Patrick, Rob Shapiro, Tommy Nutsack, Andrew J. Lederer, Barry Agida & The Sacred Clowns, Voodoo Lulu, Michele Carlo, Tom Tenney, Reverend Hank, The Purple Organ, Peplos Corey, Shut Up Shelley, Zero Boy, George Cutler, The Gothic Hangman, Bex Schwartz, Valmonte Sprout, Lloyd Floyd and Vid Hardt (David Lauren); comedians Christian Finnegan, Eric Kirchberger, Joey Gay, Bob Powers, Jeff Mac, Amy Uzi, Jesse Richards (Space Cowboy), the Reverend Francis McNerdz, Katrin Hier, Archangel Michael Stuart, Ivan Lenin; Mike Boner, Margaret Dodge, infamous "Soy Bomb" performance artist Michael Portnoy, Curtis Scagnetti (Big Quiz Thing host Noah Tarnow), Jonny McGovern, Irene Carroll, Eric Kirchberger, Faux Maux, Diva Queen Kathleen, Gecko, filmmaker/author Nick Zedd, Shauna Lane, Jason Stella and authors Janice Erlbaum, Jennifer Blowdryer, Big Mike, and Erik Seims.
Many notable performers have collaborated with various Art Stars, including Janeane Garofalo, Marc Maron, Moby, Jonathan Ames, and Karen Finley. Other notable members include Andrew J. Lederer, Lloyd Floyd, Christian Finnegan, Joey Gay, Jessica Delfino, Michael Portnoy, Christopher X. Brodeur, Jonny McGovern, Jesse Richards, Courtney Fathom Sell, and Nick Zedd.
Famous quotes containing the words art and/or stars:
“When I see that the nineteenth century has crowned the idolatry of Art with the deification of Love, so that every poet is supposed to have pierced to the holy of holies when he has announced that Love is the Supreme, or the Enough, or the All, I feel that Art was safer in the hands of the most fanatical of Cromwell’s major generals than it will be if ever it gets into mine.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Is it possible, after all, that spite of bricks and shaven faces, this world we live in is brimmed with wonders, and I and all mankind, beneath our garbs of common-placeness, conceal enigmas that the stars themselves, and perhaps the highest seraphim can not resolve?”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)