~ALFREDO MARTINEZ / RIP
I am very sorry to tell everybody . . .
that ALFREDO MARTINEZ aka The Real Fake Basquiat / passed away in his sleep, this past Sunday Aug 20, 2023.
After a long illness, may he be . . . at peace.
he was something like, 54.
ALFREDO MARTINEZ, with one of the big guns he used to assemble from online parts, in his New Jersey studio.
March 28, 2020.
Photo: Courtesy of the Artist
a young 30ish, ALFREDO MARTINEZ, just hitting the art scene / at a presentation he did at EXIT ART, curated by KENNY SCHACTER.
Soho, NYC. March 25, 1999.
Archival Photo by: NANCY SMITH /
shown inserted into a large paper ‘quilt’ / I did of Alfredo, and his work, for one of his group shows, that never materialized, but that’s – a whole other story (!!)
NANCY SMITH, ‘ALFREDO MARTINEZ SOUVENIR – PAPER QUILT’, 2021.
with archival 35mm photos, original exhibition invites, glue stick, mylar, card-stock, etc.
approx. 6 x 6 ft.
(left), JOSH HARRIS, of ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’, and Pseudo fame; and . . . ALFREDO MARTINEZ re-enact the famous Andy Warhol + Basquiat pose / to commemorate Josh’s facilitation of Alfredo’s safe return from secret detention in China, (I absolutely kid you, not !!).
Photographed in Jeff Gompertz’s loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, in the summer of 2010.
Archival Photo by: NANCY SMITH / also inserted into my ‘ALFREDO MARTINEZ – SOUVENIR PAPER QUILT’, of 2021.
JEFF GOMPERTZ built the 99+ resident artists’ pod hotel that featured prominently in, ‘Quiet’, the early tech / surveillance-wired, $1 million+ dollar, New Year’s Eve blow-out bash / and, no-holds-barred, 24/7 interactive art installation, which spanned multiple floors of a gritty, old downtown warehouse, in Tribeca, on Broadway, that Josh Harris and Pseudo, his early dot.com / multi-media company produced – to celebrate the Dawn of the 2020 Millennial, and which also included / one of Josh’s many anti-technology touches, a live stripper window, until neighbors complained. and which managed to run for almost 2 weeks, despite tons of outrageous press / until it was shut by the PDNY, the NYFD, and FEMA, all the same time !!
they thought at one point, we were a suicide cult. / nope !!
we were just bio-humans about to hit the new age of computers and social media, big time / and, we weren’t going – quietly. even as we created it, bye the way.
catch that – if you can. and yes, that was B-I-O, with a capital B.
ALFREDO, ran the notorious ‘shooting gallery’, stocked with real, and very big guns, that anyone could take a turn shooting, under the supervision, of a gun pro, of course in the basement. (and, there were no accidents by the way, which was pretty crazy considering the entire place was open to the public 24/7 for almost 2 weeks, and there were open, and I mean: FREE!! bars on every floor, pretty much almost every night. (I kid you, not !!)
In fact, Josh and Alfredo were able to get the ‘Shooting Gallery’ up and running; with a ‘FILM PROP-PERMIT’, which in a way – it was,
as ‘Quiet’, the exact, and extreme opposite of it’s moniker, and that’s an under-statement / and it’s frontier, tech-era streaming, live surveillance – went on to become the heart and soul, of ONDI TIMONER’S 2009, Sundance Grand Jury Award winning documentary . . ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’, which has an ’86’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, by the way.
and it’s still – very much alive, and kicking.
and therefore, so will be: Alfredo. RIP.