Art on the Beach 7



Dennis Adams, Billy Bang's Forbidden Planet, Jerry Barr, Karen Bausman, John Bernd & Dancers, Gina Bianco, Lenora Champagne, Yoshiko Chuma & School of Hard Knocks, Jody Culkin, Tom Finkelpearl, Claudia Fitch, Leslie Gill, Nicholas Goldsmith, Jessica Hagedorn, David Hammons, John Heys, William Jacobson, Bill Lane, Gretchen Langheld, Colin Lee, Ann Magnuson, Uwe Mengel, Melissa Meyer, Gary Monheit, Butch Morris, Nancy Owens, Lenny Pickett, Sun Ra & His Arkestra, Henry Threadgill, TODT, Diane Torr, Angela Valerio, Glenn Velez, Fred Wilson, and Willie Mae Wright.

June - September, 1985
Battery Park City Landfill
Photo © 1985 Nicholas Goldsmith

For Creative Time's last year of Art on the Beach, a closing party on September14 saluted the artists, the public, and the supporters who made the last seven years possible. Performances included the African Connection, Billy Bang's Trio, Bill and Mary Buchen, Lenora Champagne, Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks, Cross Bay, Details at Eleven, Ethyl Eichelberger, Feetwarmers, 14 Carat Soul, William Hellerman, John Heys, Julia Heyword, Linda Hudes Power Trio, Richard Landry and Tina Girouard, Gretchen Langheld and Todt, Lounge Lizards, Ann Manguson, David Marquis, Daniel McCusker, David Murray Trio, Marta Renzi and the Project Company, Michael Smith, Brian Szakowski, George Schere, and Tony Billoni, Peter Van Riper, Yoshi Wada, Stephanie Woodward and Peter Zummo, David Woodberry and Laurie Spiegel, Willie Mae Wright, Rod Young. Uwe Megel's Mushrooms, a spy, crime, sex, comedy tragedy, used post-theatrical techniques in which the audience participated. Audience members listened to a talking and singing corpse, a victim, and six other characters as the story unfolded. Gretchen Langfield's music used found objects in a surrealistic visual and musical experience. Musician Gary Monheit's, John Bernd, and dancers performed Home and Away, based on Homer's Odyssey that deals with issues of exile, journey, and the return of justice at home. Ann Magnuson, a performance and video artist, performed All Hail the Lizard King in which a split photographic image of Reagan with a sound system became a "soap-box" for Magnuson's satire. Leonora Champagne and Glen Velez's Eye of the Garden was a formal garden of colors with a grove of thirty trees and decorated bleachers for the audience. Twenty women in red dresses performed to North African drums, vocals, and tambourines. Suzanne Fletcher, John Heys, and Diane Torr enacted a Greek tragedy.