Last Address Tribute Walk: West Village

5TH ANNUAL LAST ADDRESS TRIBUTE WALK
IN TRIBUTE TO ARTISTS WHO LIVED WITH HIV / WERE LOST TO AIDS RELATED COMPLICATIONS AT THEIR FORMER ADDRESSES.

Starting with a screening of Ira Sachs’ film Last Address (2010, 9 min.) and comments by Ira Sachs at IFC Center, the Last Address Tribute Walk moved to the streets of the West Village, where Visual AIDS Programs Director Alex Fialho led a tribute walk honoring artists who lived with HIV / were lost to AIDS. At each stop of an artist's last residential address, a drawing by Win Mixter and rose were left in tribute, and special guests close to or influenced by the artist shared a related reading.

In a spirit of lively remembrance, Nelson Santos read at the last address of Barton Lidice Benes (Westbeth Artists Community, 55 Bethune Street); Tyler Matthew Oyer read at the last address of Charles Ludlam (55 Morton Street); Bette Gordon read at the last address of Cookie Mueller (285 Bleecker Street); Mary Lou Harris (Hibiscus' sister) read at the last address of Hibiscus (622 Greenwich Street); Agosto Machado read at the site of the passing of Marsha P. Johnson (Christopher Street Pier); and Casey Spooner read at the last address of Ron Vawter (285 Bleecker Street).

Though these may be the last addresses where each artist lived, the life of their work continues to address, inspire, and live with a new generation today. The constellation of readings and roses, drawings and doorsteps of the tribute walks is a site for community based on both remembrance and response.

Presented in collaboration with AIDS at Home: Art and Everyday Activism at the Museum of the City of New York.

Bette Gordon is a pioneer in American Independent Cinema, and one of the most notable filmmakers to come out of the ‘No Wave Movement’ of the 1980’s in New York, whose current film, THE DROWNING, has just had its theatrical premiere at the IFC Center in NYC. Cookie Mueller is one of the actors in Gordon's VARIETY, helping to define and layer a story about sexual desire, in which women watch men watching women.

Agosto Machado is a performance artist, speaker, and activist. He is known for his roles in Beautiful Darling (2010), Keep the Lights On (2012) and Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2006). As an artist living in New York during the AIDS crisis, he was actively involved in the trans and drag queen community of the West Village.

Mary Lou Harris, proud sister of Hibiscus, was born into a theatrical family. Mary Lou performed at La MaMa ETC, Judson Poets Theater, Electric Circus, Theater for the New City and across Europe. Images of her, Hibiscus and family are archived at The Billy Rose Division, NYPL. She is most proud of her son Miles, husband Jim, of and co-authoring the Harris family’s artistic story in the counterculture.

Tyler Matthew Oyer is an artist, writer, organizer, and educator based in Los Angeles. His work focuses on considerations of identity and inherited or imagined histories by working through theatre, video, sculpture, painting, music, writing and activism. He will premiere a movie adaptation of Charles Ludlam's 1967 epic play (and premiere Ridiculous Theatrical Company production) Conquest of the Universe or When Queens Collide in July 2017.

Nelson Santos is an artist and former Executive Director of Visual AIDS where he had the pleasure to work with and share a few martinis with Barton Benes.

Casey Spooner is an artist and performer. He is best known for founding the conceptual music project FISCHERSPOONER in 1998, and is preparing to release his 4^th FISCHERSPOONER album produced by Michael Stipe entitled SIR. Spooner has also worked with The Wooster Group since 2005 appearing in Hamlet; Cry, Trojans! and as a creative consultant on Vieux Carre. He saw Ron Vawter perform in The Wooster Group’s production of The Temptation of St. Anthony when he was 20 years old which solidified his trajectory towards experimental performance.