Gordon Kurtti

Who was Gordon Kurtti?

Gordon Stokes Kurtti was an American artist, writer, illustrator and performer. He was a seminal figure in the early East Village art scene of New York City's Lower East Side.

Kurtti’s prolific output – his crossing of visual art with literature, performance, and cinema – along with his connection to and activity within the nightclub milieu of the post punk "downtown" culture of New York City in the 1980s, when high culture merged with entertainment – is illustrative of the period before AIDS decimated an entire generation. In many opinions, such as that of writer Sarah Schulman, the loss of such potential arbiters as Kurtti changed the course of world culture forever.

Kurtti was a member of Allied Productions, a not-for-profit arts organization based in New York City. With Allied's collective umbrella as a resource and guide for social and aesthetic experimentation, he collaborated on performances, films and Arts in education workshops. Though his life was brief his output was relatively prolific - like many figures in this history of the fervent, feverish climate of New York City's Lower East Side in the '80s. He exhibited at ABC No Rio, Club Armageddon, Pyramid Club, 8BC and Life Café – the East Village hangout featured in Rent.