Talking to Stuart. S. Shapiro about the controversial and edgy Performance Art documentary classic, freshly re-released.
Mondo New York achieved immediate notoriety in 1988 when it slipped into the public consciousness, offering a new twist on the Mondo Movie tradition of sex, violence and weirdness. Harvey Keith’s exploration of the New York performance art and counter-culture scene gathered together the leading lights and upcoming talent of the scene – Lydia Lunch, Joe Coleman, Joey Arias, Phoebe Legere, Karen Finley, Frank Moore, Annie Sprinkle and Veronica Vera among them.
This was edgy stuff at the time and remains so now – perhaps even more so in these days, where people are happy to take offence at the drop of a hat. The comedy routines of Rick Aviles and Charlie Barnett certainly push several buttons with the constant stream of racial stereotyping. At the same time, Coleman’s geek show involves him biting the heads off two live mice and is a bit much to take. But equally, to cut the scene would be rather pointless – after all, it’s not going to bring the mice back – and would misrepresent both Coleman’s acts and the performance scene of the time, when buttons were being pushed and boundaries tested. Just as other documentaries – indeed, other mondo movies – explore the most extreme and controversial art forms of the time, so Mondo New York tests the limits of performance and expression at the end of the 1980s, a time when the culture wars between artists and religious moralists were at their height.
Still, it seemed as though the film was destined to wallow in obscurity after its days of VHS release ended – too arty for the mainstream, too edgy for the art scene. And with the contentious content making it a more difficult proposition as a commercial project and something for censors to cope with, it wasn’t exactly the top of anyone’s list for a new release. So the new MVD Blu-ray was a bit of a surprise – and a very welcome one at that.
It seemed the ideal opportunity to talk to producer Stuart S. Shapiro about the film and his wider career as an archivist and curator of the obscure and unusual. Check out the interview below.
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