Make Me Famous

Visual artist team McDermott & McGough “dressed, lived and worked as artists and men about town, circa 1900-1928: they wore top hats and detachable collars, and converted a townhouse on Avenue C in New York City’s East Village, which was lit only by candlelight, to its authentic mid-19th century ideal.” Studios in Ireland, NYC and London.

gallery owner - Annina Nosei Gallery who first represented Jean Michel Basquiat

b 1952 - d 2017 conceptual painter considered the Godfather of Street Art. Known for his Shadow Figures on the streets of NYC and abroad.

Peter McGough is a visual artist with a practice in NYC. Known for using alternative historical processes in photography, including cyanotype, gum bichromate, salt, tri color carbo, platinum and palladium. 

Both his lifestyle and practice betoken a flat refusal to embrace the historical present. The personal dimension of his work makes it into a deliberately provocative and controversial contemporary artistic performance dealing with political and sociological issues. McGough has shown in numerous galleries and museums around the world including 3 Whitney biennials. He is the author of the riveting memoir, “I’ve Seen the Future and I’m Not Going”

Artist who showed at the Fun Gallery, known for his pop culture icons, such as the Flintstones and the Jetsons, or caricatures of middle-class Americans in an apocalyptic science fiction setting

Claudia Summers played synthesizer for the Warhol managed Walter Steding and The Dragon People, was lead vocalist on the 80s dance club hit, Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight and essentially played herself in the quintessential Downtown 81. Photographs of her by Robert Mapplethorpe, Marcus Leatherdale and Ken Schles have been shown in galleries and museums worldwide. Currently, she is writing a hybrid memoir and co-writing scripts with her husband, the film maker Amos Poe.

Brezinski Collector

James Romberger

James is one of the most talented graphic artists to have ever come out of the Bowery. His work is in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum. James is a board member of Visual AIDS.

Dr. Marguerite Van Cook

Dr Marguerite Van Cook is prolific multi-disciplinary artist. She toured as opening act for The Clash as the lead singer for the Innocents. Van Cook’s visual artwork is in many public collections, including the MoMA, the Whitney Museum and the Schwartz Art Collection at Harvard. She is currently Board President at Visual AIDS, the organization that brought us the Red Ribbon AIDS awareness symbol as well as A Day Without Art. Van Cook also serves as a Board Member at Unbuilt Labs and President Emeritus of Howl Arts! Book collabs of note are, “7 Miles a Second,” with David Wojnarowicz and James Romberger and "The Late Child and Other Animals" with Romberger. She is a NY Times Best Selling author.

emeritus director Reading Public Museum

visual artist

(1952 - 2022) was an American visual artist and author of best selling memoir, 20th Century Boy. The New York Times described him as a "scene-maker," logging time at CBGB and other hot clubs and hanging with the Warhol crowd. Often referred to as a key participant in the birth of the New York punk scene. Known for appearing in two films by Amos Poe, Unmade Beds with Debbie Harry and the Foreigner.

Marcus Leatherdale is a Canadian photographer who came to NYC after studying at the San Francisco Arts Institute. Leatherdale first served as Robert Mappletorpe’s office manager and then worked as an assistant curator to Sam Wagstaff. Leatherdale was a darling of the ‘80s club scene and soon became known in the East Village art scene for his own photography.

Frank Holliday is a painter who became known in the New York art world in the 1970s and 1980s associated with the East Village scene. Holliday has exhibited with many galleries throughout America, Asia, and Europe. Notable solo shows include the Partners and Mucchaccia Gallery - Singapore and Villa Borgase’s Carlo Bilotta Museum - Rome and was featured in the MoMA show, CLUB 57: Film Performance and Art - NYC. A book titled “Holliday” was published by Carlo Cambi Editore. Holliday was awarded grants from, National Endowment for the Arts the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2015.

playwright and actor.

wrote Talk Radio and suburbia and well known to TV audiences for his stint on Law and Order.

William Rand - painter based in Maine

Julie Jo Fehrle - artist now working in television art direction and production design.

artist based in NYC

art critic, former editor-in-chief Art Forum from 1977-1980, professor at Hofstra University

Gallery co owner of the Gracie Mansion Gallery

visual artist, created a video archive documenting the Lower East Side art scene. Ran the Nada Gallery part of the Rivington School in 80s NYC.

Robert Hawkins is a London born painter who had his first group show at Club 57 in the downtown art scene in NYC in the ‘80s. He is known for his ferocious style of realism. Basquiat was a known collector of Hawkins’ work.

an American sculptor and painter living and working in New York City. He was a key figure in the East Village art scene in New York from 1982 to 1987 often showing together both Neo-Surrealist paintings and totem-like sculpture.

gallerist and collector

Filmmakers

director/producer: Brian Vincent

producer/additional camera/additional sound: Heather Spore Kelly