Pratfalling into Remembrance — The Deliverance of Anagnorisis

Today delivered a staggering win as far as I’m concerned. Today delivered the culmination of not letting the fuck go.

Looking over my life and my history we see a life lived very much out loud as an artist, a photographer, a writer, a cab driver, a madman.

And then 1999. Suzanne is diagnosed with a vicious wasting terminal cancer October 9th . Metastatic hemangiopericytoma. And I disappear into her life completely and utterly. I am the caregiver. I am he who serves. I actually went and got a job because she wanted me to and I knew she was gonna dies!

Though as an aside, I sold more paintings to baby bankers in a couple of years than, well, ever. I remember one year was over 100 grand. Anyway, I'm still painting I’m still doing everything I’m working on naked chicks I’m photographing people fucking Suzanne is dying and I disappeared from the outside world and kept working but that disappearance was devastating to my heart. When people look at my work and they say, “I can't afford your paintings!” or I say, “Come to the studio” and they say, “I can't buy anything.”

“You know,” I say, “Listen — I have to sell work. I don't know where I’m going to sell it but I have to sell work.” Why? Because I’m addicted to painting. When I don’t paint I get literally physically and psychiatrically ill. I need paint and canvas to fucking survive. So I’m an addict who has to deal to cop.

That said, while all artists need money all the time except for those who have gotten wealthy, except for that, even more than the money I want you to see the work I need you to see the work. You seeing the work is my primum mobile. Just come see the work!

So I disappear and then through the incredible confluence of events which we will now walk you through.

First, I’m walking through the mess that was the back room before Ashley magicked it into order. My slightly intermittently droopy foot from peripheral neuropathy catches the floor and I fall tumbling forward and land face first in an accordion file that smells of decades and a life that had gone missing and I’m like, “What the fuck is this?!” and I stand up and I reach into it and I pull out a long forgotten letter from my good friend Robert Frank yeah that Robert Frank Robert Frank of The Americans Robert Frank of two years back to back awards from the Guggenheim. Robert Frank!

And when I opened the letter:

“Jonathan,

It's snowing outside.

I really like the painting about a dance. It's brutal and on the edge.”

And then there's a paragraph about his son Pablo who has contracted Hodgkin’s Disease (of which he will eventually die )and then it closes with “If you want to come up, you can. You can chop wood.”

I look at this. Mabou, NS. And it closes “Salut, Robert” I see that's a 1976 letter we've been friends since 1974. I remember the night we met. I have gone with my lifelong friend, Steven Popper, to see a screening of Robert film and he was there and we met him. Time melts and the next thing I remember we are sitting in an all-night diner in Brookline. Robert and Pablo and me, talking all night long. And then nothing; no memories. But I was reminded that we were friends.

I don't know where his other letters are and in fact I found that 1976 letter in ‘78 and wrote back to him and it was too friggin late and I had let the, uh, I had unfortunately let the relationship lag when he needed my friendship. Alcoholics do that to their friends, but that's neither here nor there so there's that fucking letter and I’m like holy shit holy shit what's going on and I see I forgot this.

And then I remembered that Cookie Mueller had opened her Art and About monthly column Details Magazine with me. Jonathan Herbert picking her up in front of the Roxy or was it Danceteria. On 18th between West Street and Tenth. Cab driving. Chase Park, solo painting show. “I remember them.”

And that same December 1982 column then went on I can't remember the next person and then the third one to she mentioned was James (now Jamie) Nares, now in the Museum of Modern Art. And then fourth was Jean-Michel Basquiat who's also in MoMA, and in the 27 Club and in Greenwood Cemetery (big money hates junkies). Jamie's alive. SAMO®’s long dead. And looking at that Frank letter, I remember, wait a minute I was somebody!

I remember other things. Robert Miller in my cab as I am driving while painting. His invitation to bring my work to the gallery, the one that made Nan Goldin and Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe into the art stars they became, that I went and drank away the opportunity at Barnabus Rex. I ain’t whining, I’m just recounting. I did what I did. Drunks don’t care about anybody or anything, except the next drink.

Back to now. I’m, like, I can't find…I knew I’d had the Details Magazine and I couldn't find it. So I write to the New York Public Library, like, “Do you have this Details issue?” and they write back to me, “Yes we do and by the way we have an artist file on you in the Art and Architecture Collection at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building and, by the way, MoMA has an artist file on you in their library” and I’m like holy fuck I wanted to be in MoMA since I was two-years-old in the stroller. And then I write to the Museum and I'm like “Do you have a file on me like the New York Public Library says and they write back “Yeah, we do. We have four things in it. You have to come here to see them.”

Okay! And so i write back to them. I say, “Hey listen, you know, I got that Robert Frank letter. I’ve got the SX-70s from SoHo. Downtown. SAMO®’s smoking a joint in my studio. George Condo — young and pretty. A series called Shoes of the Night. The prostitution advertising I did for the mob in late 70s. Are you interested in any of it. It takes a little while and they write back to me and like we don't have the space or the manpower or blahblahblah whatever, we recommend that you contact NYU Fales Library, specializing parenthetically in 70s and 80s downtown cultural foment, and the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

I think the Smithsonian, okay. and I try them first because honestly they don't limit. They are the fucking Archives of American Art, they are not downtown 70s and 80s. Soin the week before Christmas in 2025 in December i call the Smithsonian and i almost fell through the floor when Dr. Ben Gillespie, the Head of Curatorial Affairs picks up the phone!

I lead with my strength “MoMA said I should get in touch with you” and he said, “Oh the library there?” “Yes.” I said here's what I’ve got going on. I’ve got all these things (that I mentioned above) are you interested in any of this? Do you want any of it?”

His response: “I want all of it.”

That's the lead-in and that was the moment, the release. I disappeared in 1999. I never quit; I’ve been heartbroken over not being appreciated for the creative polymathic powerhouse I am. I'm never shy about speaking my genius. I don't really think my own genius intelligence is anything but a burden. Genius is crushing and yet also a joy, but Amy, my lovely Amy: “Jonny, quit telling everybody you're a genius.”

I mentioned this to Neila my delicious and lovely therapist of 22 years: “Amy says stop telling people i'm a genius.” And Neila says, “Oh but Jonathan you are.” And then I tell my nurse case manager Julie S at the 9 \11 WTC Health Fund “Amy says stop telling everybody i'm a genius and Julie says, ”Well Jonathan, but you are!” and then today Ben Gillespie was in agreement: How prolific I am. How wide ranging I am in my polymathic creativity.

Just don't fucking quit before the fucking miracle.

It's a miracle! Now, can I leverage this into an income where I can live without feeling like I'm on the verge of destitution, constantly? I don't know. My plan is to do so but if nothing else I look at the cool as fuck archives Ben collected today. I am locked, confirmed, as I have always known, as crucial to the history of American art. My archive has be collected by the number one institution in the country.

Twenty-five years from lost to found.